


Tomorrow Never Comes Until It's Too Late

by LERDM



Series: Batman Shorts [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, No Beta, Romance, jason has issues that can't just be solved by a family reunion guys, mentions of thoughts of suicide, we live like we die-unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24014677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LERDM/pseuds/LERDM
Summary: After all the rage and thoughts of revenge dissipate, Jason comes to the realization that everything he had ever wanted to get out of life is still missing. Most days, he feels like he's closer to dead than alive and despite feeling better and getting closer to the family he knows that something has to give. Maybe tomorrow.Misunderstandings are had, and Jason learns how to be okay again, but maybe not in the way anyone thought.
Relationships: Alfred Pennyworth & Jason Todd, Cassandra Cain & Jason Todd, Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Duke Thomas & Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne, Duke Thomas & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown/Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: Batman Shorts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1760062
Comments: 40
Kudos: 253





	1. Part One

Jason and Steph ended up working a case together. Not intentionally. Steph still kind of hated Jason’s guts. He had never apologized for hurting Tim or Damian or the rest of them, and even though he wasn’t killing anymore, he was still technically a crime lord. So yeah, Steph didn’t fully trust the guy, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t work together.

“On your left Blondie,” Jason called. She dodged the attack just in time and briefly wondered how he knew about it since he was facing the other direction.

“Thanks,” She said. The fight continued. The thugs were not badly trained, better than the average Gotham criminal, but not good enough to really put up that much of a fight. Which was how Jason was getting away with watching the security feed of the warehouse in the upper corner of his display in his helmet and making sure Steph was alright.

It wasn’t that Jason didn’t trust her, but it was just that she was the least experienced out of all the bats besides Duke, but he was a meta, and against average foes, he could take care of himself just fine. But Stephanie reminded him a lot of himself, so he knew better than anyone how she could let her rage get the better of her.

The fight was now over, and Jason was starving. Steph was a little scraped up, so he suggested going back to his safe house.

Steph wasn’t sure about it, but when Jason offered up food, she agreed. Being a university student was a ramen-filled nightmare.

“So, what do you want to eat?” Jason asked.

“Waffles,” Stephanie said without missing a beat.

“Waffles?” Jason asked. “I’m offering to be your personal chef, and you want me to make you waffles?”

“Yeah, I fucking love waffles,” Steph said.

Jason nodded, “Alright, waffles it is. There’s a first aid kit by the table you can use.”

While Steph patched herself up, Jason whipped up an excellent batch of waffles. He presented them to her on a plate.

Steph took a huge bite and her eyes widened. “Jason, oh my god, these are the best waffles I’ve ever had. What did you put in them?!”

Jason chuckled, “I’ll give you the recipe.”

They ate mostly in silence, sometimes punctuated by Steph’s groans of pleasure as she devoured waffle after waffle.

“So… why were you going after those guys alone?” Jason asked. “Usually a case like that is a bat-ordered team activity.”

Stephanie shrugged, “B and I have had a bit of a communication problem recently.”

Jason snorted, “You mean just B has one.”

Steph made a face like she agreed, but her words said something different. “I mean, yeah, but… communication takes effort on both sides.”

“That’s some class A bullshit and you know it Blondie,” Jason said. “He’s the one who’s supposed to be this patriarchal figure, or at the least, he’s an adult. He needs to know how to talk to kids, his or otherwise.”

Stephanie looked a bit taken off guard by his answer. “I’ve always kind of thought that… you know, that he’s the one who needs to take responsibility. But Babs is always trying to tell me that we’re a team, you know? And you don’t blame your teammates when something goes wrong.”

“Well that’s the problem right there,” Jason started. “You’re not a team. You’re supposed to be a family, but someone’s forgotten what that means.”

Steph found herself nodding and… smiling? Pretty quickly, she found herself ranting to Jason about Bruce. She knew he wouldn’t judge her for what she said and it was… freeing.

“And okay, I get that it was terrible having his parents die in front of him like that. But that doesn’t mean he just gets to be this huge asshole to everyone. I mean, Dick’s parents died right in front of him. Tim’s parents died. They’re not assholes, so what the hell, Bruce?”

Jason chuckled a little at that. “I think the question: What the hell, Bruce? Really sums up his entire character.”

Steph laughed as well, but cut herself off. “I really shouldn’t laugh at that.”

Jason shrugged, “My parents are dead too, I think it’s okay.”

Stephanie swallowed as she prepared to ask a probably extremely inappropriate question. “How did you… when your mom was sick. How did you manage to stay around her? Because every time I come home and see my mom using I… I just can’t stay around. It makes me feel sick.”

Jason was silent for a moment and Steph was worried she had taken it way too far. “Through years of practice,” his deep voice eventually answered. “It stopped bothering me, because at first, she always told me it made her feel better. And she would feel better at first, and she would play with me and tell me she loved me and she’d have the energy to go out and get us something to eat. So then, after, when she’d collapse and be out of it for days, I guess I always figured that I was just repaying her for taking care of me. But Blondie? You don’t have to do that, okay? You don’t have to drop everything to go watch her, because you have people who can come and help. Don’t feel bad for needing help. God knows if I had had any, I would have used it.”

Stephanie swallowed. “But I just feel like a bad daughter. She tried so hard to raise us and she did such a good job but-”

“Steph, you don’t have to pay the price for the choices she made. No one will judge you for that. And you shouldn’t feel guilty.”

Stephanie didn’t realize she was crying until Jason slid a box of kleenex towards her and went to make a pot of tea.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to make you cry,” Jason said softly, handing her a mug.

She shook her head, “No, that’s just… no one has ever told me that before. And now I feel like shit, because earlier I was thinking about how much I hated you, and you’ve been nothing but kind, and actually you’ve been such a good friend and now I hate how everyone talks about you because I wish we could’ve been friends before.” Stephanie was speaking very quickly, but Jason got the gist of what she was saying.

“Hey, Blondie, it’s alright. I deserve what they say. I’ve hurt them before and honestly, I’m probably only one bad day away from doing it again. I make a lousy friend, which is why you definitely don’t want to be one of mine,” Jason said.

“That’s not true,” Steph said. “Tonight has been very cathartic, I love trash-talking B, and you actually managed to cut through years of my childhood trauma, so there’s that too. Also, you made me waffles, so that basically means you’re my husband. Congratulations.”

Jason chuckled deeply at that. “I better not have Replacement breaking down my door tomorrow.”

Stephanie laughed, “I wouldn’t count on it. It’ll be our little secret.” She stood and moved to the window. “Thanks for the food, waffle-husband!”

Jason shook his head as he watched Stephanie grapple off into the night.

Steph then made a point of going over to Jason’s at least one night a week, but usually at least three. He would often make her waffles, but sometimes he would make something else. One night he attempted some baking, he made blondies, obviously.

Steph had loved them though, so he made those more often. Once he made fried chicken with waffles, which was a highlight of Steph’s month.

Usually, they would eat and complain about Bruce, sometimes Jason would crack a beer and they’d watch a movie. Sometimes, if he was in a good mood, he wouldn’t say anything if she took a beer too.

He was decidedly not in a good mood when Steph came over about two months into the beginning of their friendship.

“Hey, you okay?” Steph asked as she came in through the window Jason was starting to leave unlocked just for her.

Jason grunted. “I’m fine. I don’t… I didn’t get any groceries.”

Steph frowned a bit. That was highly unusual for Jason. He loved cooking, so he always had groceries. “Well, that’s fine. You know I love your cooking, but I don’t come here exclusively for food. Let’s play a game or something.”

So a few minutes later, Jason and Steph each had a beer and they were in a pitched battle in Mortal Kombat.

Steph laughed as her latest combo hit Jason. “I see your uniform has strategically ripped again. Sort of reminds me of Nightwing,” Steph said.

Jason, who was playing as Sonya Blade, was about a centimetre away from a nip-slip.

“Coming from you,” Jason grunted as he rapidly pressed the buttons. It was true, Steph’s character, Kitana, was also wearing very little clothing.

Jason won, but Steph noticed he flinched away when the end move involved a decapitation.

“Do you uh… want to talk about it?” Steph asked.

Jason looked her in the eye for a moment, and in that brief moment, she saw way more pain than she had expected.

“No, Blondie, really, nothing you need to hear,” Jason said.

Stephanie paused. “Well, okay. But I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s bothering you.”

Jason narrowed his eyes at her, “Blondie, it doesn’t concern you. Go home.”

Steph became even more convinced that she had to stay. “What about everything you always say about emotional constipation? You’re being a huge hypocrite and such a dude.”

“A dude?” Jason questioned.

“Yeah, a dude who thinks he can’t ever show anyone what he’s feeling.”

Jason stared down Stephanie for what felt like a very long time but was only a few seconds.

“Fine, whatever. I had an encounter with the Commissioner Gordon last night,” Jason said.

Stephanie was now confused, “Oh, well, are you alright? He didn’t shoot you, did he?”

“No, he just… he recognized me.”

Steph’s eyes widened. “What?”

“No, no not like that. I said something, some stupid comment about his cigarettes, and I guess I’d said that to him before, as Robin. He recognized me.”

Steph’s face softened, “What did he say?”

“He… he said he was disappointed,” Jason said. His voice cracked slightly. “He was disappointed that I’d turned away from what Robin stood for and then I left.”

Stephanie was furious. If there was anything she had learned in the past few months, it was that Jason takes things people tell him about himself like law. So for the Commissioner to just say that he was disappointed without any of the pertinent information? “That jerk!” Stephanie exclaimed.

Jason was genuinely surprised by that reaction. “Well, he’s right. I’m a mass murderer, crime lord, an enemy of justice, you know, everything a police officer isn’t supposed to like?”

“He doesn’t know a _thing_ about you or your life! He can’t just say that!” Stephanie said. “I’m gonna go yell at him.”

Jason grabbed her before she made it to the window. A brief scuffle began but was ended quickly when Jason managed to grab both her arms and wrap them around her with him standing behind her.

“Blondie, don’t go and do that. It doesn’t matter, I was just overreacting.” When Steph stopped struggling, Jason let her go.

“No, you’re not overreacting. You have every right to be upset. No one deserves to be judged like that. You wouldn’t hear him saying that to Wonder Woman,” Steph said.

Jason blinked, “Well, clearly, Wonder Woman and I are two very different people.”

Steph shrugged, “I guess. But you kind of have a similar philosophy. You do what has to be done. That’s why she doesn’t have a massive rogues gallery like good ole Bats.”

“Yeah, but Steph, she’s _Wonder Woman_ . I’m pretty sure Wonder Woman never _criminally_ cut off seven people’s heads and threw them at some other _criminals_ in order to gain power in the _criminal_ underworld.”

Steph shrugged, “You weren’t yourself.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“Actually, I think it is. And you’re not going to change my opinion on that, so don’t even try.”

Jason huffed, “Yeah whatever.”

Steph went back over to the couch and patted the seat beside her, “Come on, let’s watch a movie.”

Steph let Jason pick, so he picked his favourite, Pride and Prejudice, the one with Kiera Knightly. By the end, both he and Steph were crying. Jason ended up giving Steph his copy of the book for her to read after he discovered that she hadn’t read it before.

Two nights later, Steph had brought the book with her on a stakeout that she was doing with Red Robin.

“What are you reading?” Tim asked.

“Oh, just Pride and Prejudice,” Steph asked.

“Huh, is it for school?” Tim asked.

“No,” Steph replied absent-mindedly.

“Then why read it? Seems super boring.”

Steph’s head whipped up. “It’s not boring, it’s great, actually. I really like it,” she snapped.

Tim looked at her with confusion. “Sorry, just didn’t seem like your cup of tea, is all.”

“Yeah, well, I watched the movie the other day, and… it’s a really nice story. It’s romantic.”

Tim made something that sounded like a scoff, “I thought you didn’t like romance.”

They fell into silence for most of the rest of the night.

When it became clear that they weren’t going to catch anyone, Steph put the book and her water bottle back into the bag she brought.

Tim turned to her, “Hey, want to come back to the manor tonight? We can play Mortal Kombat if you’d like?”

Steph paused, “Uh, no, sorry, I’m just sort of tired.”

Tim frowned a little, “Hey, Spoiler, just… we need to talk soon, okay? Out of costume.”

Stephanie’s blood went a little cold at that. It was the ominous ‘we need to talk’ that often spelled the doom of every relationship.

Steph didn’t end up going back to her apartment that night. Instead, she went to Jason’s.

He saw her and started making something. It was fish tacos, and they were divine.

Stephanie ranted to Jason about Tim for about an hour before realizing how late it had gotten.

“If you want, you can crash here,” Jason offered.

“Oh, yeah, if you don’t mind,” Steph said.

“Nah, you’re alright,” Jason said with a cheeky grin. 

She ended up sleeping in his bed, at his insistence, wearing a sports bra and a pair of his sweatpants, which were way too big. In the morning, she looked absurd, which she knew because Jason laughed upon seeing her walk out of the bedroom.

He was making her breakfast, which was excellent, as always.

She dug around her bag, in which she always kept a spare change of clothes because you never know when you’re going to need to switch into your civilian identity.

“Ugh,” Steph groaned.

“What’s happening, Blondie?” Jason asked.

“I forgot a coat. It’s freezing outside,” she almost whined. She was then hit with a soft ball of clothing. It was one of Jason’s hoodies.

“Here, you can wear that, and I’ll drive you, so you don’t have to walk the whole way.”

Steph smiled and hugged the man, at which he laughed. “You’re literally my hero.”

“And you’re literally going to be late for class.”

“Oh shit!”

Jason ended up getting her there on time via speeding and dangerous motorcycle manoeuvres.

“Thanks, Jay!” Steph called as she jumped off the back of his bike.

<><><><>

The next time Jason saw Stephanie was when she came through his window in her civilian clothes the next night.

“What’s wrong, Blondie?” Jason asked with concern. She seemed upset. And it usually took something pretty big happening for her to get upset.

“Tim broke up with me, said I wasn’t being myself anymore,” Steph said. She was seething with rage but was also clearly heartbroken.

Jason knew just what to do. He took her into the basement of his building and revealed a secret shooting range.

He showed her all the gun safety rules and how to shoot and aim, and then he gave her about a hundred bullets and told her to imagine that the target was Tim.

It was very cathartic, Steph quite enjoyed herself.

Afterward, Jason took her back up to his apartment and made her waffles.

“It just sucks, because I’ve been feeling really good. Like… confident and happy. And I’ve been fighting better than I ever have, and I just solved a really hard case on my own, and then he says that I haven’t been myself? So he only liked me when I needed his help?”

“I think… Tim is a lot like Bruce, probably the most like Bruce out of all of us. He has a hard time not being in control and I think he probably also has a hard time being comfortable around someone who he thinks could kick his ass. So… I’d be inclined to take it as a compliment,” Jason said.

Stephanie almost smiled at that. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

Jason shrugged, “Well, Tim’s an idiot, Blondie, if you haven’t picked up on that yet, then I don’t know what to tell ya.”

So Steph and Jason were right on their way to becoming very good friends.

That was when Duke entered the picture.

Jason was honestly very surprised that Duke wanted anything to do with him. But when there was an all-hands situation in Gotham and everyone had to team up, Duke asked if he could go with Jason.

Everyone seemed just as confused as Jason was.

They worked alright together. It was a bit of a learning curve since they had never really worked together before. But the kid had spirit, and Jason found himself almost liking him by the end of the night.

“Where do you live, kid?” Jason asked.

“Well… I don’t really know?” Duke answered noncommittally.

Jason narrowed his eyes, “What? You don’t know where you live?”

“No, I do, but it’s complicated!” Duke exclaimed. “Because technically I still live with my parents, but they’re going to go to a special facility soon and Bruce kinda implied that I could stay at the manor, and I stay there a lot anyway, but we’ve never really talked about it.”

Jason rolled his eyes, “Typical B. Want to stay at my place tonight? I’ll take you to school tomorrow.”

Duke nodded, “Thanks.”

“What do you want for late-night dinner?” Jason asked.

Duke’s eyes widened, “Uh… what can you make?”

“Probably almost anything you can name.”

Duke smiled and asked for a very specific Mexican dish that the woman who lived downstairs from his parents used to make before she disappeared one day when Duke was little.

Jason made it perfectly and Duke almost cried while eating it.

“This is so good!” Duke exclaimed with a mouthful.

Jason chuckled at him. Duke passed out in Jason’s bed and Jason spent most of the rest of the night reading. He wasn’t going to be able to sleep, not with the current number of villains on the street, including a certain clown’s assistant.

Jason made Duke french toast for breakfast and then dropped him off at his high school. He had just gotten home when he got a text from Duke, who must have swiped his phone and added his number.

‘Thnx J, ur the best.’

A few nights later, in between Steph’s usual visits, Duke showed up at Jason’s place at the end of his patrol.

“What’s up, kid?” Jason asked.

“I saw you had a Wii… and I really wanted to play Super Mario Bros,” Duke spoke hesitantly.

Jason looked at him for a minute, “Alright, come on in, but I’m gonna tell you right now, I will judge you if you chose to play as Toad.”

Jason and Duke managed to get through the first two worlds before Jason told Duke to scram because it was late.

Duke came back every night after that until they finished the game.

Jason kind of figured after that was done, Duke would stop spontaneously appearing in his apartment. He was wrong.

Steph and Jason were having their annual book club when Duke clambered through Jason’s window holding a backpack.

“Jason, I need your help!” He cried and thrust his backpack out in front of him.

Jason immediately stood and went over to Duke. “What’s wrong? Is there a bomb?”

Duke’s eyes widened. “Oh! No, sorry, not like that. I have a huge essay due tomorrow and it’s terrible and I really need to get a good grade in this class.” Duke then noticed Stephanie at the table. “Oh, uh, but if you’re busy, that’s totally fine, I’ll just… go to the library.”

“Duke, kid, it’s fine. You just freaked me out is all. What’s the essay on?” Jason asked.

Duke showed Jason and Steph what he had done and what the topic was.

The three of them spent the rest of the night editing and helping Duke come up with some better arguments. Finally, at about 2 in the morning, they had a decent essay.

“Thank you! I owe you guys big time!” Duke said.

“No problemo, Duke,” Steph said. “It’s nice not to be the one going to Jason for help for once.”

Jason rolled his eyes at Steph before turning to Duke. “You can stay here if you’d like?”

Duke nodded, “Thanks, but really, I’ll take the couch this time.”

“No need,” Jason said. “I finally put beds in the guest room.”

Jason led them to the other room where two sets of bunk beds were built.

“Sweet!” Step cried. She immediately leapt up on the top of one, while Duke lept on the top of the other.

Jason rolled his eyes again and went to his room.

Duke and Steph stayed up talking for a bit longer.

“Hey, Steph? Why does everyone always talk about Jason like he’s dangerous?” Duke asked quietly.

Steph wasn’t really expecting that, but she rolled with it. “I have no idea. I think we’re maybe the only ones who really know him. I guess if the others actually took the time… maybe things would be different.”

Duke nodded, “Yeah…” he trailed off. “He saved my mom’s life, once. These guys were harassing her and he saved her. Apparently, they had already killed four other women. She would have been number five. That’s why I wanted to work with him at first, but then… he’s really nice. He played Super Mario Bros with me for like a week when I was having a hard time with my parents.”

“He is really nice. He helps me out all the time. Too bad the others all have their heads stuck up their asses.”

<><><><><>

The next person to join their little group was Cass. She and Steph were friends and Cass had never really been concerned about Jason. She could read in his body language everything she needed to know about him.

So Steph showed up with Cass one day and Jason wasn’t extremely pleased, but he made Cass the best soup she’d ever had, and she nodded along with everything Steph complained about Bruce. So Jason supposed she was alright.

Cass liked his food very much, so sometimes she would pop in and steal a brownie or a waffle. And then sometimes she would stay a bit longer and would perch on the top of the couch as Jason played a game. Then ‘sometimes’ turned into something a bit more regular. Then she was sleeping in the guest room under Steph’s bunk once a week.

Sometimes they’d spar together in the secret basement of Jason’s building. Cass enjoyed this very much. Jason had almost as wide of a range of teachers and training as Bruce, so it made fighting him much more interesting.

More than that, he was learning. Each time he fought her he was better and she had a harder time reading his moves. Of course, he was still a long way off from getting close to her level, but she was still impressed.

Cass and Jason ended up going out on patrol together more often. Cass liked patrolling with him because while her silent and intimidating nature worked very well with criminals, it did not work so well when she needed to talk to victims or potential informants.

Currently, there was a scared little girl hiding from Cass in the corner of an alley. Cass turned to Jason.

“She is… afraid,” Cass spoke.

“Well, yeah BB, she was almost killed,” Jason whispered.

“No… she is… afraid of _me_ ,” Cass said.

Jason softened, “Oh, right. Okay, I’ll talk to her, you wait for the police.”

Cass stood guard in front of the alley but turned so that she could see what Jason was doing. He had crouched in front of the girl and taken off his helmet. She couldn’t make out what he was saying, but the girl slowly lifted her head from where it was tucked into her knees.

Eventually, she spoke back to him, Cass could read her lips.

“Why’d they do that Mister Hood? I don’t have anything to give them.”

Cass couldn’t see what Jason’s response was, but it was enough for the girl, who nodded.

When the police came, the girl wouldn’t talk to them without Jason there, which unnerved the officers, seeing as Red Hood was still technically a bad guy.

He handed the girl off to a social services worker that she felt comfortable with and then he and Cass disappeared into the night.

Cass followed him home where they could take off their masks and communicate better.

“How do you help make them calm?” Cass signed.

“I usually just tell them that they’re going to be alright. I try to empathize, you know?” Jason signed back. Cass looked at him with confusion and shook her head, “Empathy means that you understand what they’re going through, and I do. I lived here, I lived through their pain. So I get it, and I just… know what to say.”

Cass nodded, “You’re hurting,” she signed.

“I’m fine,” Jason said, waving her off. He went to his room to get changed out of his gear.

When he came back out, Cass was wearing one of his hoodies and leggings. “We play game. Racing.”

Jason smiled a little and turned on the Wii. He and Cass played for a while, but Cass could tell that Jason wasn’t feeling much better. She paused the game.

Jason looked at her with a frown. “What’s wrong?”

“You… talk, I won’t… tell,” Cass said.

Jason looked away slightly, “Cass, I don’t wanna talk about it. It’s fine. Really.”

“No, not fine. You talk. I will listen,” Cass said strongly.

Jason sighed and looked at his folded hands. “Cass, I just don’t feel the way I did before. I’m so tired of life being like this. Before, it didn’t matter, because before this, all I wanted was revenge. But now that’s gone, and all I want is-” Jason choked on his words, “All I want is my life back. And I ruined it.”

Cass was confused. “You… don’t ruin things.”

“Cass, I can never look Tim and Damian in the eye. Bruce hates me, the police are never going to forgive what I’ve done. I’m dead, I can never go back to school, I can’t walk around in the daylight openly, hell, I can’t live anywhere other than shitholes like these because then that would draw attention.”

Cass frowned again, “Ask Barbara… she help.”

Jason shook his head, “No, Babs is maybe the one I can’t face the most. She and I… went through very similar things. And I turned into a psychopath and she became stronger and better. Besides, she hates me about as much as Bruce does.” Jason rubbed his face, “Listen Cass, thanks for the talk, but I need to get some sleep.”

Cass didn’t want to leave, Jason seemed maybe worse off than before, but she could also tell from his body language that he wasn’t going to talk to her anymore that night.

“Night… brother,” Cass said before leaving the apartment.

In the next few weeks, Cass noticed Jason held that same tired look in his eyes, held the same sadness in his shoulders.

She was a little frightened of what he might do, so she kept an eye on him when they were out on patrol. Once, he had stopped for a drink of water and moved to the roof’s edge so he could look into the alleyway below and he was almost tackled to the ground by Cass.

“No… you don’t,” Cass said firmly.

Jason was very confused, “What? I was just looking to see if anyone was down there!”

Cass stared at him, “Drink water.”

Cass could also tell that the others didn’t really catch onto Jason’s state. Being around Stephanie and Duke was good for him, Cass could see that.

Jason was one of those people who could manage to get over whatever was bringing them down if it meant helping someone else. There was no clearer example of this but when Bruce was out of town with Alfred and Dick called a family pool-party.

Jason was sitting off to the side, in swim shorts and a long-sleeve, reading a book. Everyone else was in the water, except for Stephanie, who had come to sit down beside Jason.

“What are you doing over here, Blondie, go dunk Damian or something,” Jason said.

Steph’s face twisted in embarrassment. “I uh… don’t really do pools.”

Jason looked up from his book. “You don’t know how to swim?”

“No, I do… it’s just I don’t really feel comfortable in a swim-suit.”

Jason stared at her, “Blondie, you can’t actually believe that a: you’re not a solid 10, and b: that anyone here is going to judge the way you look.”

Steph shrugged, getting more comfortable on the beach chair by the pool. “I just… feel uncomfortable about the scars, is all.”

Jason could relate to that, it was one of the many reasons he was sitting there with a shirt on. So they lapsed into silence for a few minutes, until Jason sighed and put down his book. He pulled off his shirt and stood in front of the sun that was hitting Steph. “Come on, Blondie, no one’s going to look at your scars now.”

Steph looked up at him, looked at his shredded stomach and the horrific autopsy scar, along with many, many others. So many others that the amount of scar tissue must be greater than the amount of regular skin.

“Jason, you don’t have to-”

“Doesn’t bother me. I just saw Replacement and Baby Bat playing chicken and thought you might want in,” Jason lied easily.

Stephanie smiled a bit before she jumped up and took off the shirt that covered her cute one-piece. She cannon-balled into the pool and everyone else laughed as she hopped up on Jason’s shoulders and started dominating the game of chicken. Tim was on Cass’ shoulders and Damian was on Dick’s, so Steph on Jason’s shoulders had the clear advantage.

Jason almost didn’t notice the way the others looked at his body with sadness, pity, anger, horror, or whatever else the idiots were feeling, because he was too focused on making sure no one was making Steph uncomfortable.

<><><><>

A few days after the pool-party. Tim showed up at the apartment.

Jason was clearly very uncomfortable with his presence, but Steph and Cass had brought him, so he was just going to blame anything that went wrong on them.

Tim was actually a very good guest. He loved Jason’s food, and he said it constantly. He was very respectful of Jason’s personal space rule, even when literally no one else other than Cass was.

Pretty quick Jason was starting to warm up to Tim more than he thought was possible. They even found themselves working a few cases alone one night.

They did pretty good, and Tim realized he had to apologize about something.

“Hey, Jason, I need to apologize to you,” Tim said when they got back to Jason’s apartment.

Jason narrowed his eyes, “I’m pretty sure you’re not the one who needs to apologize, Timber.”

That was another new thing, Jason’s endlessly changing list of nicknames for Tim. But he never called him Tim, he also stopped calling him Replacement, so… progress?

“No, no I do need to apologize. For buying into all of Bruce’s bullshit about you,” Tim said. He knew this was a sensitive subject, he didn’t need to see Jason tense to know that. “Barbara once told me that I wasn’t the first genius to be Robin, and I didn’t know what that meant, I thought maybe she was talking about Dick, or maybe about herself as Batgirl, but I never thought she was talking about you until last week when I saw how fucking brilliant you are and I think it’s stupid that Bruce has reduced your single descriptor to rage when it should probably be intelligence,” Tim ranted.

Jason blinked. “I’m no genius, Barbara must’ve been confused.”

“Jason, I looked at your marks in school, they’re better than mine. You’ve successfully hidden from Batman for months at a time, which is definitely some sort of record. Your emotional intelligence is what makes you maybe the most dangerous person I know. You use it to comfort victims and hurt your enemies without even fighting them. And I… always just thought you were insane.”

Jason looked at Tim darkly, “I don’t recall stabbing you in the chest with my emotional intelligence and mental stability.”

“No, but… that was different,” Tim said. “Anyway, I just wanted to apologize for making a million assumptions before I’d ever met you.”

Jason looked very tired as he sighed, “Don’t worry about it, Timbo. You can crash on the bunk under Duke’s if you’d like.”

The next morning, Jason acted like their conversation last night hadn’t happened. He made Tim his favourite breakfast, coffee and a cheesy omelette.

Tim was a hot mess on the best of days, so him being more involved in Jason’s life was, in Cass’ opinion, a good thing. It was someone else for Jason to take care of, and when Jason feels like he needs to take care of others, he seems to do better than when he’s alone. And honestly, having Tim being taken care of by Jason was working out well for the kid too. He had put on more muscle since eating Jason’s food almost every other day. He was sleeping better too, probably because Jason refuses to let him have more than two cups of coffee each day when he stays at Jason’s apartment.

One day, Tim was just relaxing there, doing some work for Wayne Enterprises. Jason wasn’t home yet, probably still on patrol, but he had told Tim and the others that they could come in any time.

Then Steph showed up with Cass in tow. Steph was working on some homework for her university classes. Cass was content to just watch Steph and Tim work with a small smile.

When Duke showed up a while later, he and Cass played a game on the Wii.

Jason came in half an hour later and smiled at the odd collection of people in his home.

“You all need to get lives. Stop hanging around a zombie so much,” Jason joked. Though Cass could tell Jason was actually curious about why they always wanted to come over so much.

“Big brother… make good food,” Cass said with a cheeky grin.

Jason laughed and rolled his eyes as he started making some snacks. He was partially interrupted by the entrance of a new Bat into the apartment.

“Bat Brat, what are you doing here?” Jason asked.

Damian removed the hood covering his face. “Why did you never tell me it was you?” He demanded.

Jason glanced at the others who were pretending not to be listening.

“ _Kid, what are you talking about_?” Jason asked, switching to Arabic for a more private discussion.

“ _You were my protector as a child. I… you were like a brother to me, when you disappeared I thought Grandfather had had you killed,”_ Damian said desperately.

“ _I thought… it would be strange. Because I hurt you, to get to Dick. I thought you’d prefer your memories of him to be untainted by me,_ ” Jason said.

 _“But it_ **_was_ ** _you! You took the beating from my Grandfather that was meant for me, I… why did you do that?_ ” Damian asked.

“ _Because you were just a kid, and you didn’t deserve it. You shouldn’t have ever been hurt like that.”_

“ _But you were only 17.”_

_“Yes, but I wasn’t really alive anymore, Damian. I was dead, it didn’t matter what happened to me anymore.”_

_“Well that’s not true,”_ Damian said.

Jason sighed. The oven timer went off and Jason flinched before grabbing oven mitts and pulling the tray out of the oven. Damian examined the tray.

“Tt. One of your baked goods is defective,” he remarked, looking at the one blondie compared to the other brownies.

“Nah, that one’s a blondie for my Blondie, the rest are brownies for my bros,” Jason said.

“Aww!” Steph cooed.

“I… am bro?” Cass asked.

“Yep,” Tim answered. “So, what was that convo about?”

Jason and Damian shared a look.

“Nothing important,” Jason said with a shrug.

“Tt. It was _important_ , simply none of your concern,” Damian said.

Damian stayed the night there, Jason let him sleep in his bed. When, in the night, Jason could hear whimpers coming from his room, Jason got up and laid in bed with Damian.

“Ahki…” Damian sniffled into Jason’s shirt.

“Do you want me to call Dick?” Jason whispered.

“No. And if you ever speak a word of this to anyone I will eviscerate you,” Damian threatened.

Jason softened his posture, “Then why were you calling for your brother?”

Damian looked up at Jason with confusion. “You’re my brother, imbecile.”

Damian curled up into Jason’s side, feeling truly safe for the first time in a while. There was something to be said about the feeling you get when you’re around someone you know would do truly _anything_ to keep you safe.

<><><><><>

Dick and Tim were feeling hopeful, they were just a few members of the family away from getting Jason completely reintegrated into the family. If they had asked Cass, she would have told them that Jason was stagnant, or even worsening in condition.

So Dick decided it was time for him to join this little party.

He showed up at the apartment one night. Duke and Steph and Damian were there playing Uno and Jason was cooking Damian’s favourite. Dick slipped in through the window, and like Jason could sense that there was someone unwelcome in his house, he had a gun pulled on Dick in less than a second. He lowered it when his brain actually registered who it was.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Jason asked. His tone was downright venomous.

Dick didn’t let it stop him. “Well, I heard that all the other birds and bats hang out here, so I thought-”

“Get out, Dick,” Jason interrupted.

Dick’s smile faltered slightly and he glanced at the others. Steph and Duke were sharing a concerned look. Damian was confused.

“Jay, I just want to hang out with you,” Dick said softly.

“That window closed for you a long time ago,” Jason said. His deep voice was shuddering. “Leave. Now.”

Dick finally frowned, “I… okay, Jay. I’m sorry.” Dick then left.

Damian slept in Cass’ usual bunk, Duke followed soon after. Then it was just Steph and Jason.

“Hey… I know Dick can be a dick, but he really does have good intentions,” Steph said.

“Yeah, well, I don’t care. He was a huge asshole to me as a kid when I had done nothing, he was never there, he hated me, he told me he hated me to my face. Who the fuck does that to a kid, Steph?” Jason asked.

Stephanie swallowed and grabbed Jason’s hand. He didn’t pull away. He wanted to, but he didn’t.

“Fuck him,” Steph said. Jason furrowed his eyebrows. “Really, fuck Dick Grayson. Don’t… don’t make up with him because he wants to. You should do it for you.”

Jason just looked at her. Then they both burst out laughing. “That was cheesy as fuck, Blondie.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Steph said, wiping her eyes from the mirthful tears. She looked up at him and realized they were standing very closely together. She leaned up and briefly kissed him before pulling away to see his reaction. He was smiling softly. “Was that… okay?”

“Yeah, that was okay,” Jason whispered. He leaned down to kiss her again. He then picked her up and she giggled into his shoulder. He dropped her on his bed and climbed in next to her, holding her tightly to him. “I really like you, Blondie.”

“I really like you too,” Stephanie whispered back.

She woke up in the night, feeling Jason moving behind her. She turned around and whispered reassurances into his ear until he settled back down, wrapping his other arm around her. She fell right back asleep.

In the morning, Jason made waffles for Steph and kissed her cheek as she walked into the kitchen. Duke and Damian shared a _look_.

Duke drove himself and Damian to school while Jason cuddled Steph on the couch for a while before Jason broke a few driving regulations to get to Steph’s school on time.

“See you around Blondie!” Jason called.

“Bye Jay,” Steph replied, beaming at him.

Jason drove home, and then he broke down in his apartment. What did he think he was doing? He liked Steph, really, he did. But god was this such a bad idea. First of all, he would never be able to meet her friends. Second, he would never be able to meet her mother. Third, he was an unstable mess and she deserved better than that. Fourth, he had no idea how this was going to affect the budding friendship between him and Tim.

She had no life with him. It would be like dating a ghost, which… was actually extremely accurate.

He hadn’t known there was someone in his apartment.

“Jason?” Cass’ voice asked from the window.

Jason didn’t really have the energy to fight her off as she sat down on the floor with him and held him as best as she could. He cried into her shoulder for a few minutes and then Cass’ questions began.

“Why sad?” She asked.

“I… I was thinking about Stephanie,” Jason said. “I really like her, Cass.”

“I know.”

Jason smiled a little at that, “Yeah, of course you do.”

“So Steph makes… you sad?”

“No, no, not at all. I was just thinking about how I can’t ever really be with her.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m dead, Cass. How could she ever introduce me to her mom, to her friends? Not to mention that I’m starting to really get along with Tim again, and I don’t wanna hurt him anymore than I already have.”

“Tim… forgive you. I know. And… you are not dead. You are alive. Happy you are alive,” Cass said. She squeezed his hand. “Ask Barbara.”

“No, Cass. I told you already, I _can’t_.”

Cass sighed. “Stubborn. You are alive. Not dead. Stephanie like you. You like Stephanie. Be together.”

Jason looked at Cass again. “I… thanks, Cass. I’ll think about that.”

Cass wasn’t certain that she’d managed to sway Jason at all, but she hoped she had. Jason and Stephanie would make very cute babies.

That night, Cass was peering over Bruce’s shoulder as he worked on a case. He stopped after a while and stared at nothing before he turned to look at her. “How is... Jason... doing?”

Cass thought about telling him everything. How Jason was struggling to imagine that he was alive. That he thought he was unworthy of love or affection. That some days he looked like he was going to make a terrible mistake.

“He is… stubborn. I try to… help? But he… doesn’t listen. He… has pain.”

Her words had hurt Bruce, she could tell that much, but maybe it would spur him into doing something.

“I’m glad he has you,” Bruce said. He looked at her and she could tell he was proud of her.

Cass hugged him. “Love you, dad.”

Bruce relaxed against her as he hugged her back. “I love you too, Cassandra,” he murmured into her hair.

<><><><><>

Jason did end up taking Cass’ advice about one thing. He pursued his relationship with Stephanie. To his surprise, Tim didn’t hate him for it.

Steph really liked Jason. Like… a lot. 

Cass could tell it was only a matter of time before Stephanie was completely in love with Jason. But Cass also saw how Jason started deteriorating. 

He felt guilty about being with Stephanie. When she wasn’t there, when it was just Jason and Cass. Jason would tell her how he felt. That he thought he should leave her so she could be with someone better, that he was a terrible person and didn’t deserve her, that he was so afraid of hurting her. The only reason he hadn’t broken up with her was because Cass had told him that leaving her would break her heart, and as much as he hated himself for being with her. He loved her so much, and he didn’t want to hurt her.

Stephanie had a feeling something was going on with Jason, but as Tim had said, Jason was the most emotionally intelligent of them all, and therefore had the easiest time concealing emotion. For example, if Stephanie ever brought up the fact that he was acting strangely, he’d tell her something true, but not the thing that was really bothering him.

“Jay… are you okay?” Stephanie asked quietly when they were alone in the kitchen.

“Yeah, Blondie, I’m fine. Just didn’t sleep well last night,” Jason said.

Stephanie squeezed his hand, “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault, Blondie,” he replied with a slight smile. Then he’d make a joke or some other wise-crack and Steph would forget that she had been worried about something that had nothing to do with sleep.

Jason and Damian were also progressing in their brotherly relationship. Whenever Damian felt scared, or homesick or a strange combination of both, he went to Jason. The man told the best stories. He told Damian about his adventures with Talia, about when Bruce had been an idiot during Jason’s tenure as Robin, about Tim doing ridiculous things to try and sneak coffee into Jason’s apartment. And he always spoke to him in Arabic, which comforted Damian.

No one except for Cass (because honestly, she’s practically omiescent) really understood the depth of their relationship until the day there was an unfortunate incident with some fear toxin.

Jason and Duke were patrolling the Bowery when they got a frantic message from Dick. “Whoever’s close by, I need help! Robin’s been hit with a strong fear toxin and there are still men all over the place, I can’t get him out safely and fight them off.”

Duke and Jason were close, so Jason replied to the message. “Signal and Hood, on our way.”

They arrived and quickly dispatched the rest of the men before Jason narrowed in on the screaming coming from the other side of the warehouse.

He ran over to see Damian struggling against Dick, shouting out in Arabic.

Jason jumped into action.

“Ahki!” He called, Damian stilled slightly before returning to his struggles. _“Damian, I’m right here. It’s okay. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. Never again. I know you’re afraid, but I can make it better.”_

Damian stopped screaming and stopped struggling as Jason had spoken. Jason took off his helmet and took Damian from Dick, who was just staring at Jason with very mixed emotions. On one hand, he was happy that Damian didn’t seem so afraid anymore. On the other hand, he was upset, that _he_ couldn’t calm Damian down like that.

Damian hugged Jason tightly and started sobbing into his shoulder. Something along the lines of: “please don’t let them take me” and “I’m so afraid.” It made Dick’s heart break.

Jason found himself in the cave for the first time in many months, almost a year. Bruce was there, in the suit, but without the cowl.

He was very surprised to see Jason come in with Damian in that state, even more confused when he caught Dick glaring at Jason’s back.

“Damian, I need to take blood,” Bruce said gently. He tried to pry Damian away from Jason, but the child wouldn’t budge. Bruce looked at Jason.

 _“Damian, it’s alright, it’s just your dad. Let him see your arm,”_ Jason murmured in Arabic.

To Bruce’s surprise, Damian hesitantly complied, but kept his head buried in Jason’s shoulder.

Bruce, as carefully as he could, took a sample so he and Tim could start making an antidote.

Jason went upstairs with Damian, the others stayed in the cave to help.

“What happened?” Bruce asked. “I thought this was just an average drug-bust.”

“I’m not sure,” Dick started. “I think Scarecrow is up to something. He’s been synthesizing a lot of new formulas recently. I think he’s planning something.”

Bruce sighed and nodded. “Alright, we’re close to an antidote, I’m going to check on Damian.”

He went up to Damian’s room, and was surprised to find that Jason had managed to get Damian to sleep. It was fitful, but it was better than the screaming state Dick had found him in.

“Need something, old man?” Jason asked without looking at Bruce.

“Just wanted to check on Damian.” Bruce stood at the door awkwardly. “What happened tonight? Why is Dick upset with you?”

Jason gritted his teeth. “I don’t know what the golden boy’s problem is and I don’t particularly care.”

Bruce could tell he’d misstepped. “You did well tonight, thank you.”

Jason shook his head slightly, “I don’t care about your judgement of my actions. Just… hurry up and find a cure for this. I don’t want to be here for any longer than I have to be.”

Jason’s words stung, so Bruce nodded and slowly left the room.

He returned to the cave. “How is he?” Dick asked.

“He’s fine, Jason managed to get him to fall asleep,” Bruce said.

Dick scoffed, “How’d he do that? By drugging him?”

Tim frowned, “What’s your problem with Jason? The whole night you’ve been a huge… dick!” Tim exclaimed. “He’s helping Damian, I thought you’d be happy about that?”

Dick was taken aback by that, he glanced to the only other person in the cave other than Bruce, Duke.

“Sorry man, I agree with Tim. You’ve been kind of a jerk tonight.”

“I… I didn’t mean to. I was just surprised. They’ve never gotten along before.”

Tim and Duke shared a glance and then both turned to leave.

“Whoa, whoa, wait. What was that look?” Dick asked.

Tim turned back around. “Dick… Damian is always hanging around Jason.”

“Yeah, I know. But why? They never did that before,” Dick said.

Tim and Duke shared another look and Dick was about one second away from blowing a gasket when Bruce stepped in.

“Jason knew Damian when he was with the League of Assassins. The last time Talia was in town, she told him. Damian hadn’t been aware they were the same person,” Bruce spoke. He had known this for some time, and he was only saying it now because Tim and Duke were Jason’s friends. And he didn’t want Jason angry at them for telling Dick private information. But Jason couldn’t really be more mad at Bruce, so he felt okay saying it.

Dick blinked for a moment. “Oh… I… I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, well, maybe next time you shouldn’t pull so much of a Bruce and actually ask people about their emotions,” Tim suggested sharply. He moved to leave the cave with Duke on his tail.

“Wait, where are you guys going? I thought you were done for the night,” Dick said.

“We’re going to Jason’s,” Duke said. He tried to cut some of the tension by giving Bruce and Dick a smile, but it just translated as very awkward.

They had found an antidote not too long after that, but when Bruce went upstairs to administer it to Damian, the boy seemed fine.

“Must move through the system quickly,” Bruce said.

Jason tucked Damian under the covers of his bed and got up and left without another word to Bruce or Dick.

Jason returned to his apartment to find Duke and Tim asleep in his guest room and a special surprise waiting for him in his room.

Stephanie was waiting for him in what he was sure was meant to be a sexy pose, but she was wearing Wonder Woman underwear and had the strangest grin on her face so he looked at her for one second before bursting into quiet chuckles.

She couldn’t keep a straight face either and they just ended up laying on the bed the wrong way and laughing for a few minutes. He almost forgot he was angry at Dick and Bruce.

A little while later, Bruce and Dick were the farthest things from his mind.

<><><><><>

Stephanie woke up to the smell of excellent waffles and smiled. She put on one of Jason’s hoodies and walked into the living room where Duke, Tim and Jason were discussing their favourite book series.

“No! No spoilers!” Duke cried.

Steph grinned and caught Jason’s eye. “Someone called?” She announced dramatically.

Jason chuckled and Tim and Duke both cracked smiles. At first, it had been a little awkward for Steph when she was around Tim, but they had had a heart to heart a few months back, and ever since then, they’ve been totally fine.

“Seriously, how can the two of you be that far ahead of me?” Duke whined.

“One, I’m a very fast reader with no other obligations. Two, Tim has no life,” Jason said.

“Hey!” Tim protested as Duke nodded.

“Blondie, want to go to comic-con with us today? We need another lady to form the main group. Either that, or we’re getting Tim in a dress,” Jason said.

Stephanie gigled, “Okay, but only if she’s badass, I don’t want to be some bar-wench or whatever.”

Jason grinned, “Oh yeah, your character is the best, _Duke_ is going as the bar-wench.”

“Hey! Thestial is a respectable elven bard who just happens to be sleeping with babes left and right! I will not be slandered!”

“Actually, I don’t think it counts as slander if it’s true,” Tim added thoughtfully.

Jason was just shaking his head and laughing. “Irony abounds. Who was the one who called me in a panic the other day because someone offered to-”

Duke launched himself across the kitchen to put a hand over Jason’s mouth. “No! Don’t tell them that!”

The table was uproarious with laughter.

Cass came around later that day with her costume. Jason whipped out a needle and started hand-sewing adjustments on everyone’s stuff.

When Steph saw he was sewing, she almost swooned. “Have I ever told you that you are literally the perfect man?”

Jason shook his head and chuckled. “Far from it, Blondie.”

She watched him work for a second, “Where did you learn how to sew?”

“Alfred taught me how to fix my own uniform. I got a lot more holes in it than Dickface did, and I didn’t want to bother him all the time.”

“Oh, that’s actually really sweet,” Steph said. She pecked him on the cheek before she got up to try on her newly-altered costume.

An hour later, and they were ready to go.

At the place, everyone stared at them, mostly because their costumes were amazing, but also partially because Cass was showing a lot of skin and the crowd was mostly either creeps or virgins or both.

They ended up winning a costume contest though, and they walked out in the early evening all smiles. They went to a local restaurant to celebrate and have a few drinks for those of age (which was just Jason, but he let Duke have a sip of his beer, which he almost spit out).

When they all came back to Jason’s place (which was sort of starting to become all of their places too) there was an unexpected guest waiting for them.

Cass moved defensively in front of Jason and the others as she locked eyes with Talia al Ghul.

Jason smiled lightly. “It’s alright, Cass,” he said as he put a hand on her shoulder.

 _“Talia, not that it’s not nice to see you, but a little notice would have been nice,_ ” Jason said in Arabic. He turned back to the others. “Just get changed you guys, it’s fine.”

Everyone shared the same apprehensive look, but they did disperse.

 _“My boy,”_ Talia started. “ _How have you been?”_

 _“I’m alright, have you been by to see Damian?”_ Jason asked.

 _“Not yet, but I heard what happened, and I appreciate that you’ve taken him back into your life. I’ve also… been worried about you. You haven’t been keeping in touch._ ”

Jason looked away for a moment, “It’s complicated.”

Talia placed a hand on his cheek, “I’d like to talk, alone.”

“Meet me at the usual place tonight,” Jason said.

Talia smiled tightly, “Okay, I will see you there.” She took his hand and squeezed it while she brushed a few strands of hair out of his face. “You need to take care of yourself.”

Jason nodded, and Talia left.

Everyone else slowly crept out from the various rooms they had hidden in.

“So… what was that all about?” Steph asked slowly.

Jason frowned a little, “Doesn’t matter.” He went off to take a shower.

That night, Jason took a break from his patrol to meet up with Talia.

“I’m worried about you, Jason,” Talia said.

“There’s nothing to be worried about. I’m dating Steph, I’m… reconnecting with the family. Everything’s going my way,” Jason said. The words sounded hollow in his mouth.

Talia shook her head slightly, “Come here habibi.” She wrapped him in a tight embrace. “Now, tell me how you’re doing.”

“I-” Jason’s voice caught in his throat. “It’s not better. Why isn’t it getting better?”

“Is it the pit?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Jason said. He wasn’t afraid to cry, but he didn’t want to worry Talia, so he blinked rapidly in order to clear his eyes. “It’s just… I’m… I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you want? Name anything and I will find a way to give it to you,” Talia said.

Jason swallowed, “You have a time machine?” He asked with a choked breath.

“Oh my boy,” Talia said. “Is it Bruce? Is it the Joker? I could have either of them dispatched for you within hours.”

Jason sniffled and wiped his cheek. “No, it’s… I want to go to school. I want to be able to get married and have kids and-” He shook his head. “I want my dad, I want Alfred to read Shakespeare to me. I want Bruce to sit with me when I’m sick. I want my life back. I want my life back. I want-”

At this point Jason was close to hyperventilating, and Talia began rubbing soothing circles on his back.

“Jason, look at me,” Talia said.

He looked at her as he shuddered in breaths.

“You can have your life back. There are just a few pieces of the puzzle missing now. I will help you find them, habibi, I promise,” Talia whispered. “First, your life. I will put in the paperwork myself. I will bring you back to life legally. You’ll be my son, Damian’s brother, and when my Beloved comes to his senses, he can claim you as well. I can get you entry to any school you want. Anywhere in the world, I will send you there. I’ll buy you an engagement ring for the blonde you seem infatuated with. I will lend you the League’s artificial womb if I need to, so you can be a father.” Talia looked into his eyes. “I’m so sorry. When I brought you back the first time, that I stopped halfway.”

Jason broke down in her arms, “I can’t, I can’t face them. They hate me too much.”

“Jason… I cannot speak for all the members of your father’s family, but I hardly believe they hate you. However, if you find yourself unable to move on here… I can send you away. Go to school and forget about them and live your life the way that makes you happy. I just want you to be happy, habibi.”

“I… I can’t just leave,” Jason said.

Talia patted his cheek gently. “You think about what you want me to do, and I will do it. You know how to get in touch.” She turned but then paused and looked over her shoulder, “But don’t wait too long, I don’t want you to suffer any more.”

Jason nodded, and Talia disappeared into the night.

The others wondered what had gone down that night, but none of them ever had the chance to ask him, because Scarecrow made his move the very next night.

All members of the family were compromised, and Jason needed to gather them back at the cave before they got hurt, or before Scarecrow could find them.

He found Stephanie first. The new toxin seemed to be the opposite of the one that had affected Damian the other day. It wasn’t the most potent, but it was long lasting. They weren’t screaming out in fear, but they were taking cues from their environments as to what they should be afraid of.

So Stephanie, upon seeing a large man wearing a mask/helmet, started begging not to be hurt anymore. She thought Blackmask was back.

Jason removed his helmet and that helped enough for Jason to convince her to come with him as they made their way back to the cave. On their way, they stumbled across Duke. He was just very worried about his parents, and kept begging for Jason’s help. Jason had to tell him that Bruce had something that would help them in the cave.

Jason dropped them off at the cave and went back out to get the rest of them.

They were all pretty much following Alfred’s orders of waiting where they were for backup, which was lucky, because Jason could not have chased Cass across the city.

He crouched in front of her and tried to make himself look as friendly as possible. He didn’t want her bolting, and he didn’t want her to attack him because she would win.

She eventually allowed Jason to coax her to the cave where she joined Duke and Steph in the containment unit.

Jason went after Damian next, and the boy wasn’t in terrible shape, but he was a bit out of it. More than the others had been.

Jason was leading him back to the cave when they were intercepted by Nightwing.

“Hey Dick, everything’s fine. I’ve got Damian, and the others are at the cave. Just come with me,” Jason said softly.

Nightwing was breathing oddly though, and Jason could tell that Dick wasn’t having a good reaction when he started talking.

“You can’t hurt them anymore! What do you even want?!” Dick shouted. “Don’t you touch them!”

Jason froze for a moment, when he realized what Dick was saying. He thought he had hurt the others, thought he was hurting Damian.

Jason had to unfreeze, though, because Dick was charging at him.

Jason didn’t want to hurt the man, but it was hard to only play defense against someone as skilled as Dick. He walked away hurt, more hurt than he could afford to be if he was going to have to gather the rest of the family and take down Scarecrow all by himself that night.

Bleeding, and hauling an unconscious Dick over his shoulder, gripping Damian’s hand tightly, Jason made it back to the cave.

Alfred’s eyes widened when he saw the state of the boys.

“Master Jason! What happened? Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I…” Jason paused and glanced at Dick. He thought about what he had been afraid of, that Jason was going to hurt them. “I was trying to wrangle Damian and Dick and some thugs got in a few lucky hits. The blood’s mostly theirs.” Jason felt bad lying to Alfred, but he knew the man wouldn’t let him back out there if he knew that Jason definitely had a few cracked ribs and had a fairly significant wound on his abdomen, under all the body armor.

“Be more careful out there, Master Jason, the city is depending on you tonight.”

Jason swallowed, “Yeah, I know.”

He then went back out to get Tim and Bruce.

He found Tim first, and the boy was instantly wary.

“Hey, Timmy,” Jason started. He’d abandoned the Hood a while back, something he regretted when Dick had been attempting to punch his face in, but was glad he had now that he was trying to convince Tim that he wasn’t going to hurt him. “Listen, there’s something going on, and Bruce needs you in the cave.”

Tim looked at him sceptically. “And why should I trust _you_?”

Jason swallowed, “Because I’m your friend, and… I’m asking you to go home.”

Tim scoffed, “You’re not my _friend_ , you almost killed me!” That hurt more than it probably had any right to.

“I did, and I’m sorry. But Bruce really needs you back at the cave. It’s not about me. It’s about the city, about the mission.”

Tim relaxed slightly, “Fine, but if I find out that you’ve done anything tonight, and I’m bringing you in.”

Jason nodded, “Okay, okay.”

He watched him go and looked up at the starry sky, blinking back tears. This is what they really thought about him. But that didn’t matter right now. He had to find Bruce, and then he had to find Scarecrow. And then… he wasn’t sure.

He found Bruce sitting on a rooftop, talking on the comms with Alfred. At first glance, Bruce seemed not to be affected by it. Jason wasn’t affected because of his little dip in the Pit, hence why he was doing all the heavy lifting, but there wasn’t any explanation for why Bruce wouldn’t be affected.

Which was why when he started acting strangely, Jason realized he _had_ been affected, big time.

“Jay…” Bruce breathed. He had a panicked look about him. “What happened? Who did this? Are you okay?”

“Hey, big man, focus, alright? I’m fine. Let’s get you home.”

Jason started walking and was almost bowled over by Bruce coming up from behind him and picking him up.

“B, what the fuck are you doing?”

“You’re hurt, I’m taking you back to the cave,” Bruce grunted.

Jason wanted to protest, but if it got Batman to the cave…

They arrived at the cave with Bruce only stopping to cry over Jason’s body twice, which was a bizarre experience for Jason. However, things quickly went downhill upon Bruce entering the cave.

Alfred was upstairs doing something, and Dick had woken up in the meantime. He and Tim had managed to convince the rest of the group that Jason had kidnapped them in an attempt to lure out Bruce so that he could kill him.

So Bruce put Jason down, Dick shouted at Batman: “Bruce! Jason kidnapped us! He’s using us to get to you!” Then Jason received a punch in his already damaged ribs.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, he was fighting Bruce on the floor of the cave, and Bruce wasn’t holding any punches.

Jason was pretty sure that he had now broken all the ribs Dick had fractured. Plus more nasty bruises to his face, plus the possibility of internal bleeding.

Jason was saved by Alfred coming down not too long into the beatdown, which distracted Bruce, which allowed Jason to pinch a nerve on his neck, rendering him unconscious. Jason blearily stood, brushed Alfred off and dragged Bruce into the containment unit and was careful to close it quickly so the others couldn’t get out.

“Master Jason! You are not fit to go back out there. I insist you say here and let me treat your wounds!”

Jason shook his head and avoided Alfred’s hands that were trying to guide him to sit down.

“I gotta find Scarecrow. Do you think you can handle the antidote here?” Jason asked.

“I believe so, but Master Jason, you cannot leave the cave,” Alfred said.

Jason steeled himself.

“Alfred… I’m- I need to do this. And I can’t stay here because I’m scaring them.”

Alfred frowned, “Master Jason, please-”

“I’m sorry, Alfred, for everything, I’m so sorry. Can you tell them that it’s not their fault? Bruce and Dick, will you tell them?” Jason turned and ran as fast as he could.

He found Scarecrow’s lair and confronted him there. It was a long battle, and a hard one, and Jason came out bloodier than he came in, but eventually, he handed the man over to Gordon.

Jim looked at him with what appeared to Jason as almost concern.

“You need a hospital,” Jim eventually said.

Jason took in as deep of a breath as he could with his ribs the way they were. “We don’t really have to do this whole thing where you pretend to care how I’m doing.”

Jim frowned. “You just saved the entire city, you think I don’t care at all about the person that did that?”

“You made your feelings on my life very clear the last time we spoke. So I’ll understand if you can’t do me this favour, but I need you to tell Batman, when he comes, that I was in good shape when I left here, and… to forget about me and move on.”

Jim raised an eyebrow, “Right, because you’re clearly in tip-top shape.”

“Gordon. Please. He’ll need to hear it,” Jason said.

“Why would he come to me asking about it? Why can’t you just debrief him? And what the hell are you even talking about?” Jim asked.

“He’ll come to you because you’re going to be the last person who’s seen me,” Jason said.

Jim nodded as he lit his cigarette, but as the words processed through his head, he looked up for the kid. But Jason was gone.

An hour later, Talia was sitting next to Jason in a private jet, stitching up his wounds.

“Where do you want to go, habibi?” She asked him.

“I’m not sure,” Jason murmured.

Talia nodded, “How about England? I have some contacts there, so they won’t find you. You can go to university.”

Jason sniffed, “Yeah, that’s… perfect. Thank you.”

Talia gently stroked his bruised cheek, “You should know by now, that I would do anything for my sons.”

<><><><><>

Alfred was desperately waiting for the cure for the fear toxin to take effect so he could inform Bruce of what had happened and send him after Jason.

It was taking an agonizingly long time, so he set up the cave computer to call Jason’s cell phone every ten minutes.

Tim was the first one to recover, and Alfred then realized that because the fear had done such a good job of blending already existing threats, that everyone was going to wake up thinking Jason had attempted to kidnap them.

“Master Timothy, you had been dosed with fear toxin. What you remember is not what happened,” Alfred said when Tim asked how Jason got away.

Tim blinked, “Then… what happened? I’m… why can’t I remember what really happened?”

“I am not certain, Master Timothy, this was a new creation from Scarecrow.”

Tim’s eyes widened. “Is he still out there?”

“No, Master Jason handed him over to Gotham PD two hours ago, however I haven’t been able to contact him since and he left the cave very distressed and quite injured. I am very worried.”

Tim nodded, “Okay, let’s… I’ll run scans, see if I can find him. Hopefully he’s just gone home, or maybe to Leslie’s.”

Alfred nodded and felt much better that Tim was now on the case. Damian was the next person to recover, right before Duke.

Tim sent them to Jason’s apartment to look for any indication he had been there.

When the comm line static opened in the cave, Alfred was hopeful that they had just found Jason passed out in his home, but the news he received was far worse than that.

“Tim… we… we found a note, and his helmet,” Duke’s shaky voice said.

“Does it say where he went?” Tim asked.

“Tim…” Duke breathed and Tim’s blood went cold.

Damian’s voice came over the comms.

“Thomas is overreacting, the… note merely expresses his overdramatic nature,” Damian said.

“What does it say?” Tim asked.

“It says… I’m sorry,” Duke said.

Alfred had to turn so Tim couldn’t see how his face fell.

“Did you find anything else?” Tim asked.

“No, nothing,” Duke reported.

“Okay… just… come back to the cave and we can… figure this out,” Tim said. His voice sounded hollow.

“No. I will stay here. I believe he will return home when his senses return to him,” Damian said.

“Well you can’t just stay here alone, Damian. And I… I’m not sure Jason’s coming back.”

“Tt. Well that just shows how much you know, Thomas. He wouldn’t just leave like this again.”

Everyone listening to the exchange felt their hearts break slightly.

“Okay, Damian, just try and get some sleep, okay? When Dick wakes up I’ll send him over,” Tim said. “Duke… come back to the cave. We need to… discuss what to do next.”

Duke returned to the cave, and in the meantime, Stephanie and Dick had woken up. It took a bit of convincing toward Dick that Jason hadn’t actually done anything, but once he was convinced, his big brother mode was turned on high.

“Oh god, I hurt him… I-I thought, I thought he had hurt Damian,” Dick said.

Alfred stepped forward. “His last words to me before he left was to tell you and your father that it wasn’t your fault.”

Dick swallowed, “Alfried… don’t say it like that. He’s not- he can’t be.”

Tim was off to the side, consoling Stephanie.

They met back up altogether.

“We have to act quickly, I think it’d be unlikely that he’s already… gone through with it,” Tim said. “We don’t have much time left.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Dick protested. “He’s already been… dead. He wouldn’t just go and-and kill himself. He wouldn’t.”

Steph and Tim shared a pained look. “If he did. He wouldn’t do it in a place where we’d be able to find his body. He wouldn’t do that. So he needs time to plan this, so I think it’s likely that, _if_ he is planning on… then he might not have gone through with it yet,” Tim said.

Stephanie wiped her eyes, “I’ll go and check his other safehouses, someone should go and see Leslie.”

“I’ll go to Leslie,” Dick said. “I still think she might just be treating him there.”

“Someone should go talk to Gordon too,” Tim said. “As far as we know, he’s the last person who’s seen Jason.”

“What’s going on?” Bruce asked from behind them.

They all jumped and Dick only screamed a little bit.

“Where’s Jason? I… I think I did something but… everything is very fuzzy,” Bruce said.

Alfred took a step forward. “Master Bruce, come over here for a moment. There’s… something you need to know.”

Alfred led Bruce over to a corner of the cave, out of earshot.

“Alfred, what’s going on?”

“When Master Jason left the cave tonight, he was very injured and he was very distressed. He was behaving very much like he would not be seeing any of us again. When Master Duke and Master Damian went to his apartment, they found a note…”

Bruce’s legs felt like they might collapse, “No… Alfred he… _no_.”

The last time Bruce had sounded so childlike was… Alfred didn’t want to think about it.

“Master Timothy believes there is still time, so we must carry on, despite our fears,” Alfred said.

Bruce nodded and walked back over to the others. “What’s the plan?”

“Stephanie’s going to check out Jason’s other hideouts, Dick’s going to see if Leslie’s seen him, Duke is going to do a sweep of Jason’s usual patrol routes and I was thinking you should go talk to the Commissioner, if you feel alright,” Tim said. “I’ll stay here and keep trying to find any footage that might lead us to his location.”

Bruce nodded, “We need to hurry, it’ll be daylight soon, making it harder to investigate without questions.”

They split up and moved quickly.

Duke knew in his heart, what had happened, and so he wasn’t surprised that he found nothing. He returned to the cave with shaky hands. When he got there, Cass was waiting. She brought him in for a hug.

“Why would he do that?” Duke asked tearfully. “We all loved him, he knew that, right?”

Cass nodded, “He knew… it was him. He was… hurt.”

Duke went back out once more, combing through the places Jason frequented, before the sun came up.

...

Dick had a bad feeling as he approached Leslie’s clinic in Crime Alley. He knocked on the door anyway, because whatever he thought he was going to hear, it couldn’t be worse than what the others thought already.

Leslie opened it and let him inside.

“Nightwing, it’s been a while,” Leslie said with a tight smile.

“Dr. Thompson, it’s an emergency. I need to know if Jason came by here tonight,” Dick said.

Leslie looked away, “Richard, come, sit down,” she said as she guided him to a chair. He felt his heart sink as he sat down across from her. “He wasn’t here, but... I just got an anonymous donation of 15 million dollars and the only message was, ‘Thanks for everything Doc.’”

“Well… Jason donated all the time, that doesn’t mean anything… right?” Dick asked.

“Richard, from what I gathered, that was the entirety of his financial assets. I don’t know why he would give that all away so suddenly. I’m worried about him, have been for a while, I gather something happened tonight?”

Dick nodded, “The others think… that he, that he might have killed himself,” he whispered.

Leslie’s eyes filled with tears as she nodded. “There are few people alive today who have suffered as much as Jason has. I never… I never thought it would come to this.”

Dick began to cry, “My little brother is gone.”

Leslie moved to sit beside him, “Don’t give up hope, he’s come back before.”

Dick shook his head, “This is different, this is… this is all my fault. I was a terrible brother, and tonight I- I hurt him and I said all those terrible things.”

“Richard, I don’t know you very well, but I do know one thing, that you’re a good brother. Whatever the reasons that Jason decided to do this… I’m sure you weren’t one of them.”

Dick shook his head and stood, “I have to get back.”

Leslie nodded and walked him to the door. “You take care, Richard.”

Dick nodded and swung off toward where Jason’s apartment was. Damian was still there, and refusing to leave until Jason returned.

He slipped in through the window and found Damian curled up into a ball on Jason’s bed, wearing one of the man’s hoodies over his Robin uniform.

Dick sat down on the bed and placed a hand on Damian’s shoulder. He opened his eyes excitedly and called, “Jason!” But then his face fell and his lip started to tremble. “Where’s Jason?”

Dick started to cry, “Dami… I’m so sorry, but… he… we think he…”

“No! No! He wouldn’t! He promised he wouldn’t leave me again!” Damian shouted. Angry tears ran down his face.

“I know, Dami, and we all know how much he loved you,” Dick choked out.

“Then why did he go? Why did he do this?” Damian asked.

“I don’t know, Dami, I don’t know.”

Dick held Damian on Jason’s bed for a long time, until he started to see the sunrise above the horizon.

“Come on, Dami, let’s go home, okay?” Dick said. He wiped Damian’s cheeks off and waited until the boy stood. Then they came back to the cave and met up with the others.

…

Stephanie couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t have done this. They had been doing so good, she had almost told him that she loved him just the night before.

She went from safehouse to safehouse, and each broke her heart more than the last.

In the first one, she found some of his favourite books, she took Pride and Prejudice with her.

In the next safehouse she found all his extra gear. There were dozens of backup helmets and leather jackets. Steph grabbed one of the jackets and put it on. It smelled like smoke and blood and gunpowder. She almost wished that it smelt more like the man himself, not his alter-ego. Jason always smelt like food, whatever he was cooking. He smelt how a library felt.

She moved onto the next one and found just the bare bones of an apartment, but there was one personal item in the entire place. A photo. It was of Bruce, Dick and Jason from before Jason’s death.

He was so small. Steph honestly was shocked. She was so used to him being this huge man. He was taller than Bruce, a bit broader too. The photo showed him just coming up to Bruce’s elbow. He was wearing a sharp suit, so was Bruce and Dick. It must have been before a gala. Dick had a bit of a hollow smile in the photo, and Bruce seemed tense, but Jason was genuinely happy. It was probably one of the few happy moments all three of them shared.

She took the photo back to the cave and gave it to a tearful Dick when he arrived. The photo never left its place from Dick's living room, serving as a reminder of the brother Dick should have been.

...

Bruce went straight to Gordon’s house from the cave and stood at the foot of Jim’s bed.

“Commissioner Gordon,” Batman spoke.

Jim woke up with a string of expletives and then just stared at Batman.

“Batman, why are you here?” Jim groaned.

“You were the last person to see my son alive. I need to know what he said. Any clues as to where he might have gone,” Batman said.

Jim’s eyes widened and he swallowed, “He said that you’d come talk to me, and he told me to tell you that he was okay when he left, and… to forget about him.” Bruce stumbled back and Jim jumped out of his bed to go to his side. “Hey, are you alright?”

“He’s… he’s _gone_.”

Jim felt a lump in his throat. “I’m sorry. I tried to stop him from leaving but-”

Batman shook his head, “There wasn’t anything you could have done.” Bruce took a shuddering breath. “God he was so young.”

“Is he… gone?” Jim asked. He started to realize that Batman wasn't talking about missing.

Batman nodded, “We aren’t going to find the body, he wouldn’t have done that to his brothers.”

“I’m so sorry, Batman. Truly.”

Batman nodded and stood to his full height once again.

“Goodnight, Commissioner,” Bruce said as he grappled out the window.

Bruce went to one of Jason’s favourite places to go when he was Robin, an old gargoyle on the corner of 4th and Bloom Street.

He replayed all the moments that he should have done better. He should have had a better reaction when Jason came back. He should have been a better father to him when he was a child. There were so many things, probably close to an infinite number, that he wished he could have changed, so that they never got to this point.

After a while of standing there, the sun started to break over Gotham, and Bruce returned to his cave, one bird less than before.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where's Jason been?

<><><><><><><> Six Years Later <><><><><><><>

“Daddy?” Elizabeth asked.

“Yeah, sweetheart?” Jason replied, sitting on the edge of her bed.

“Can you read me another story? One of the ones that  _ you _ like?” She asked.

It was already past her bedtime, but she was a night owl like her father. “Okay, let’s see…” Jason stood and moved to the bookshelf. His copy of Pride and Prejudice was sitting there. He sat back down. “You know, I named you after the main character of this book?” Lizzie’s eyes widened as she smiled. “ It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,” Jason began.

It wasn’t long before she fell asleep. Not surprising, considering she had just turned four. He carefully got up and turned the lights off, slipping out. He went further down the hall and poked his head into his eldest’s room. The boy was sound asleep, clutching the stuffed penguin, which was his favourite toy, close to his chest. Jason was not sure why Bastian loved it so much, but the five-year-old he never let it out of his sight.

Jason then quietly opened the door into his room. He peered over the crib that was beside his bed. His youngest, Lawrence, often called Laurie, was still asleep. The boy was an excellent sleeper, unlike his siblings before him.

He laid down in bed and set his alarm, it probably wouldn’t get a chance to go off, Laurie pretty much woke up at 8 am every day anyway, but setting the alarm for 9 was wishful thinking.

He taught classes at Oxford on English literature. He was at the university for about four hours a day, which was very convenient. He had a Talia-approved nanny come over and watch the kids while he was gone. When he came home he usually played with Bastian and Lizzie until they were tired enough for a nap. Then he’d feed Laurie and work on his research on the floor of his living room while Laurie rolled around. One night a week, he taught a self-defence class to women at the university.

It was amazing and perfect, and Jason had never been happier.

Talia visited the next week, Jason opened the door and Lizzie and Bastian shouted “Gramma!”

Talia crouched down to the kid’s eye level and smiled at them. “Elizabeth, Bastian. How are you?”

“We’re good!” Lizzie chirped.

“Yeah, yesterday, daddy took us to the zoo, and we saw so many  _ penguins _ !!!” Bastian said excitedly.

Talia laughed a little as she stood. She looked at Jason warmly, “How have you been Habibi?”

“I’m good, mom. How are things with you?”

“All is well.”

“Come in, I’m making your favourite,” Jason said.

Talia stayed over for a few days, she usually came around once a month and stayed a few days. She was immensely happy that Jason was living a good life. She loved her little grandchildren very much, and Jason was an excellent father.

That night, when the kids were all asleep, Jason and Talia sparred in the basement.

“You’ve retained your skills well, Habibi,” Talia said with a hint of pride.

Jason chuckled a bit, “Yeah, I try to keep up with the practice. The teachers you send over every once in a while helps too. I uh… appreciate that they’re kid-friendly.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t allow anyone near my grandchildren if I believed they posed a threat.”

Jason smiled, “No, the only person who feels threatened in the presence of my children is me.”

Jason regaled her with stories of how his children are constantly trying to kill him. She was happy to listen. She remembers how Damian was at that age, although… she made many mistakes, raising him the way she had. She was very happy that Jason was being a better father to his children.

For the next two days, Jason went to work and Talia watched the kids. Lizzie was just like her father, she always wanted to be told a story. Bastian was very energetic and wanted to run around all the time. Then there was Laurie, who was a very relaxed baby. He just wanted to be held. If someone was holding him, he was totally fine.

Talia told Lizzie stories about a mythical hero, and she chased Bastian around the house and she rocked Laurie to sleep.

When Jason came home on Talia’s final day of staying with them, Talia was just putting the kids down for a nap.

They sat and had tea and spoke softly until Bastian came rocketing out of his room.

Jason chuckled and went to wake Lizzie.

“Okay kiddo’s time to say bye to Grandma,” Jason said.

“Bye-bye Gramma!” Bastian said, giving the woman one last hug.

“Bye Grammy!” Lizzie said happily.

“Goodbye children,” Talia said with a soft smile.

“Bye mom,” Jason said.

“Goodbye, Habibi.”

Jason watched Talia get into a waiting car his kids waved as she drove off.

Bastian pulled on his pant leg. “Daddy, can we go to the park?”

Jason smiled a little. “Yeah, sure, kiddo.”

So he put Laurie into a carrier that he strapped to his chest, got the wagon full of toys, put Lizzie in there and walked holding Bastian’s hand to the park nearby the house.

He watched Lizzie and Bastian play in the park with the other kids. After about an hour, they were completely tired out, so Jason gathered their things and started to walk home. His house was right by Oxford campus, and they had walked past the university on their way there.

They were just passing the main entrance to the campus when a shocked voice spoke from behind them.

“Master Jason?”

<><><><><>

Alfred had agreed to take Damian to the UK to look at universities. They had been to Cambridge yesterday, and they had visited Oxford today. Before a few weeks ago, when Damian had had an explosive fight with Bruce, he was only considering Gotham U, but now he was feeling that he needed some space from Gotham.

So there they were. The presentation at Oxford was much better than the one at Cambridge, so Damian was seriously considering it.

He and Alfred were walking off the campus, joining up on a path with the main road when they saw someone walking ahead.

Damian stopped in his tracks and Alfred took a few more steps forward before he spoke. “Master Jason?”

The man froze, and then he turned. Jason’s eyes and confused face looked back at them.

Jason looked different. His hair was longer, he had a bit of a black beard growing. Not to mention the kids. There was an infant strapped to his chest, sitting in a wagon behind him was a little girl, and holding Jason’s hand was a little boy.

The boy looked up at his father. “Daddy, who’s that?”

Jason blinked and looked down at his son. “That’s um, that’s my grandpa, and… my little brother, Damian. Do you remember the name Damian? I’m sure Grandma’s told you about him,” Jason said.

The boy hummed, “Oh yeah, Gramma did say a Damian.”

“Daddy, you have a grandpa?” The girl asked.

Jason rubbed his eyes, “Yeah sweetheart. That’s Alfred.”

Damian then walked up and began in Arabic. “ _ Where have you been?!” _

Before Jason could answer, Lizzie spoke up in slightly broken Arabic. “ _ Daddy’s here with us.” _

Damian looked down at her and then started pacing slightly on the sidewalk.

“Dami… you’re all grown up,” Jason said. He was starting to tear up.

Damian looked at Jason, “Well you’ve been gone for  _ six years _ !”

“I know… I’m… it’s complicated.”

“Master Jason, why on Earth would you leave like that, I-”

All three men were close to crying, and Bastian was starting to worry. “Daddy, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m alright, kiddo. I’m just… uh, happy. These are happy tears. Everything’s fine,” Jason reassured.

“Oh… okay,” Bastian said. He let go of Jason’s hand and walked up to Alfred. “Hi, I’m Bastian. Daddy says that’s a name from a book.”

Alfred looked down at the boy with a tearful grin. “Very pleased to meet you, Master Bastian. I am Alfred. I knew your father when he was a very small boy.”

Bastian’s eyes were alight with curiosity, “When he was in Gotham?”

“Yes, when he was in Gotham,” Alfred replied.

“Oh… he doesn’t really tell us stories about that,” Bastian said.

“Yeah, cause daddy said it’s not a nice place. I’d rather hear Pride and Prejuice,” Lizzie said.

“Pride and Prejudice, Lizzie. But good job, you were really close,” Jason correctly gently.

“Right, Pride and Prejudice, that’s the one that has my name. And Laurie is from Little People.”

“Little Women, Lizzie, but good remembering.”

“Right, Little Women,” Lizzie said. She was beaming.

Damian went back to pacing. And Jason wasn’t sure what to do with this information.

“So… Do the two of you want to come for dinner?” Jason asked.

Before Damian could turn around and snap at Jason, Alfred cut in. “We would love to, Master Jason.”

“Right, okay, well, we just live two blocks down,” Jason said.

Lizzie hopped out of the wagon and went up to Damian and held out her hand. Damian looked down at her with confusion.

“Daddy says we always have to walk with people. And you weren’t holding Alfred’s hand.”

Damian clenched his jaw, but then he sighed and allowed the little girl to hold his hand.

They walked back to the house and Jason put Laurie down in his playpen.

“Daddy, what’re we having for dinner?” Bastian asked.

“I think I’m going to make chicken parmesan, what do you think?”

“Okay, but not with vinegar,” Bastian said.

“Okay, kiddo, no vinegar,” Jason said with a smile. “Why don’t you and your sister go outside and play on the trampoline for a bit?”

Lizzie and Bastian giggled and ran outside.

Jason took a breath and turned to Damian, “You still a vegetarian?”

“No,” Damian said shortly. Jason nodded and started preparing things in the kitchen. “Are you going to even  _ attempt _ explaining yourself?” He asked.

Jason didn’t stop working in the kitchen. “I don’t really know what you want me to say, Dami. I didn’t want to leave, but there wasn’t a night that went by in Gotham that I didn’t wake up in the night, forgetting that I wasn’t dead. There wasn’t really a day that went by that I didn’t think I was better off that way. And I… I haven’t felt that way in years, Dami. It’s like the moment I left Gotham, the moment I stopped thinking about all of it, everything got better.”

Damian stopped his pacing and stared at Jason. “You left. You left without a word when you promised you’d stay.”

“I know, and I am sorry for that. But I’m… I’m not sorry for all this. I love my kids. I love my job. This is everything I ever wanted,” Jason said.

“Where is their mother?” Alfred asked.

Jason smiled funnily. “Well, they don’t have one. Talia, she uh… she knew I wanted kids, so she took the liberty of making Bastian in one of the League’s artificial wombs for me. And then I loved him so much, I wanted a girl, so she made Lizzie, and then just over a year ago I thought one more wouldn’t hurt, and then I got Laurie.”

Damian was now seething. “She knew this whole time, that you were alive?”

“Yeah, she’s the one who brought me here, got me all setup.” Jason looked at Damian. “Don’t be mad at your mom. It was her idea, but the choice was mine.”

They sat in silence for a long time, until Bastian and Lizzie ran back inside and dinner was almost ready.

“Bastian, Lizzie, go sit at the table, alright?” They complied easily. He brought the food out, with some help from Alfred and Damian.

They sat and ate. There was rarely a moment of silence, either Bastian or Lizzie was telling a story, or Laurie was babbling. Lizzie seemed quite taken with Damian, she liked talking to him in Arabic, she thought the language sounded cooler than English so she tried to speak it whenever possible.

Bastian wasn’t quite as good with Arabic, so he mostly spoke with Alfred about his favourite books, or games or toys. He also told the man he was very excited to start school the next year. Jason would occasionally talk about the adventures of him and the kids. 

By the time dinner was done, and they had cleared the table, it was starting to approach the kids’ bedtime. Damian reluctantly played with Lizzie and Bastian while Jason put Laurie to sleep.

Then he read Bastian to sleep, then Lizzie, and then he sat down with Alfred and Damian.

“I can’t ask you to keep this to yourselves, I know that,” Jason started. “But I’m never going back.”

“Master Jason, your siblings, and your father, they miss you, mourn for you even now,” Alfred said. “You are right. I cannot keep this from them.”

“I know, Alfie, and… you’re welcome to come and visit. Anytime. I should probably start telling the kids more about me anyway. Bastian’s always asking. And the others, they can come too. Not all at once, but… this was… good, nice.”

Alfred clasped Jason’s shoulder, “It was, my dear boy. I am devastated that you felt leaving like that was your only option, but I am very happy that you enjoy your life here.”

“Thanks, Alfred,” Jason said. They hugged and then stepped apart.

“I’ll give you two a moment,” Alfred said. He walked down from the door and waited on the sidewalk.

Damian looked at Jason. “I hate you.”

Jason’s eyes softened. “I know.”

Damian stood there for a moment, and then hugged his brother tightly. “I love you.”

“I know.”

“Don’t ever disappear like that again.”

“I won’t, I promise. And you can come visit whenever you want, I have a spare room.”

“Okay,” Damian said as he stepped back and composed himself. “Goodbye, ahki.”

“Bye, Dames.”

<><><><><>

Alfred and Damian were on their way back to Gotham.

“How are we going to tell them?” Damian asked. “It will tear them apart.”

“We will do it gently. I believe just the information that he is alive and well will suffice at this time,” Alfred said.

“You don’t want to tell them about the children?”

“I believe that Master Bruce and the others can find that out for themselves.”

They landed in Gotham that night, just after everyone was finishing up patrol, and called a meeting of the family at the manor.

Once everyone was gathered, Bruce looked at them with concern.

“What’s going on?” Bruce asked.

“Master Bruce, I am… quite glad to say that Master Damian and I made a wonderful discovery when in Oxfordshire.” Damian and Alfred exchanged glances. “Master Jason, is alive.”

The table was silent. Bruce looked like he was in a great deal of pain as he looked to Damian, “Alfred… just because you saw someone that may have looked like him-”

“No, father, Pennyworth is correct. Jason is alive. He’s a professor at Oxford. We saw him when we were walking around the university. We went back to his house and he… attempted to explain himself.” Damian looked up and took a breath, “It’s him. He’s alive.”

Bruce stood immediately. “Where does he live?”

Alfred told him the address, and Bruce went down to the cave and took off in the Batplane.

He arrived in Oxfordshire eight hours later. He left the plane concealed and walked to Jason’s house. It was about 8:30pm.

Bruce rang the doorbell and Jason went to answer the door.

He froze as he saw who it was. “Bruce… come in.”

Bruce didn’t move for what felt like hours, but then he felt his feet go forward.

“Want a drink, or some food or something?” Jason asked.

Bruce just stared at him, Jason frowned and walked further into the house. Bruce looked around and saw all the children’s toys and sippy cups and tiny jackets.

“Jay…” Bruce started. His voice was shaky. “Do you have-”

“Daddy? Is someone here?” A sleepy voice asked from a hallway off to Bruce’s right.

Bruce turned to see a little boy who looked exactly like Jason.

“Yeah, just a visitor, don’t worry, you can meet them tomorrow,” Jason said.

“Okay… night daddy.”

“Good night, Bastian. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Jason turned back to Bruce

“That’s my son, Bastian. He’s always been a light sleeper,” Jason said.

“Bastian… from a Neverending Story?” Bruce found himself asking.

“Yeah, and-”

He was cut off by another voice.

“Daddy, who’s here?”

Bruce turned to see a little girl standing in the same spot as the boy.

“Just a guest. Don’t worry sweetie, just go back to sleep,” Jason said reassuringly.

“Oh, okay. Love you.”

“Love you too, Lizzie. Goodnight.”

Jason turned back to Bruce just as a wail erupted from a room down the hall.

Jason sighed lightly. “I’ll be right back.”

Jason returned a moment later with a baby in his arms.

“This is Laurie,” Jason said. The baby babbled and reached up for Jason’s face. “He likes playing with my reading glasses,” Jason explained as he took them off and handed them to the baby, who started sucking on one of the arms.

He moved to the fridge and got a bottle. He heated it up, tested it, and then gave it to Laurie.

“Bastian, Lizzie, Laurie, I see you stuck with a theme,” Bruce said.

“Yeah, well, you know me…” Jason trailed off. He looked at the way Bruce was staring at the child in his arms. “Can you hold him for a second? I just need to make sure Bastian and Lizzie actually went back to sleep.”

Bruce nodded and Jason handed him Laurie and the bottle.

Laurie looked up at him with inquisitive eyes as he slurped at his bottle. Bruce touched the black plume of hair on his head. “You look just like your father,” Bruce whispered. “Especially your eyes.” It was true. All of Jason’s children looked exactly like him, the black hair, the bright blue eyes, the nose. Everything.

Looking around, Bruce didn’t notice any sign of a wife/girlfriend/mother.

Laurie was done with the bottle and Bruce set it aside. The boy looked to be on the verge of falling asleep, so Bruce gently rocked him as he walked around and examined the room. There was an entire wall of photos on one side of the family room. Bruce looked at them. There were tons. Many of Bastian and Lizzie as babies, birthday parties, vacations in what looked like Greece, playing in a park, reading together, etc.

Bruce was holding a sleeping Laurie, looking at the pictures when Jason came back in.

“He asleep?” Jason asked quietly.

Bruce nodded. Jason motioned for Bruce to follow him. They went down the hallway, passing the half-open doors of Bastian and Lizzie, who were sound asleep. They walked into what was clearly Jason’s bedroom, there was a crib beside his bed.

“Just… put him down in there,” Jason said quietly.

Bruce carefully put down the child in the crib. Jason set the baby monitor on the table and then gently shut the door behind them.

They went back out into the main room.

“Want a drink? I’m having a whiskey,” Jason said.

Bruce nodded, “Make it a double.”

Jason smirked a little and poured them two glasses.

“So… you’re a father,” Bruce said.

“Yeah, I am. It’s been amazing. I love them, so much.” Jason glanced at Bruce. “Which is why I hope you understand that I can’t ever go back to Gotham.”

Bruce looked at Jason sadly. “I do, understand that. What I don’t understand is why you let me think that I had lost you all over again.”

“Because I knew, in the beginning that if any of you came after me, I would’ve gone back. I felt terrible about it, and I knew it was… that it would hurt the rest of you. So I didn’t say anything. And then, by the time I finally felt good again, it had been so long, and, from what I could tell, you had all healed. I didn’t want to open up that wound again. And then I had Bastian and Lizzie, and I knew I was never going to bring them there. It was an accident, meeting Damian and Alfred again, but… I’m glad. I’ve missed all of you. And Bastian and Lizzie love meeting new people.”

Bruce nodded and clasped Jason’s shoulder. “I’m so proud of you. And I am… hurt, that you didn’t come to us when you felt like you wanted to…” Bruce stopped. “But it’s so good to see you happy again. And your children clearly love you.”

Jason nodded and wiped a few stray tears from his face. “Will you stay for a few days? I’m sure they’d really like to get to know their grandpa.”

Bruce smiled and nodded. “I’d like that.”

Bruce slept in the spare room, and the next morning he woke up to the smell of pancakes and the laughter of small children.

Jason had somehow made the pancakes in the shapes of various dinosaurs and Bastian and Lizzie were making them ‘fight’. Jason was trying to coerce Laurie into eating his breakfast.

“Okay, come-on. I know that you like this! I made it!” Jason exclaimed.

Laurie made a giggling noise but refused to accept the spoon.

“Ugh, fine, I give up, you win, happy?” Jason groaned. Laurie grabbed the white streak in his hair and smeared orange mush into it. Jason sighed and looked up at Bruce who was staring with a slightly amused smile. “I don’t want a peep out of you,” Jason playfully threatened. He stood and went to the sink to rinse off his hair.

Bruce sat across from the kids, who stared at him for a second. “Are you daddy’s daddy?” Lizzie asked him.

Bruce glanced at Jason, who gave him a small nod.

“I am.”

“So… you’re our grandpa?” Bastian asked.

“Yes, if you’d like me to be,” Bruce answered.

Jason crouched in between the two kids and looked at them, “What do you two think?”

Bastian looked like he was going to agree right away, but Lizzie seemed more suspicious. “I dunno, I wanna ask him a few questions first.”

Jason was incredibly proud. “Sounds reasonable. What do you think Bastian?”

The boy tried his best to emulate his dad, “Sounds reasonable.”

Bruce chuckled, “What do you want to know?”

Lizzie and Bastian looked at each other and grinned. “Come over here,” Bastian said with a grin. The kids hopped out of their seats and led the man to Jason’s office. Once Bruce was inside they shut the door, so that Jason, who was following behind, was left outside.

Lizzie told Bruce to get into the office chair which spun. Then Bastian turned on the table lamp while Lizzie shut the blinds.

Bruce was slightly concerned that they were holding such an in-depth interrogation.

“So… what do you want to ask me?” Bruce asked.

“Why doesn’t daddy talk about Gotham?” Bastian asked.

“Well, because Gotham isn’t a very nice place,” Bruce answered.

“Then why do you live there?” Lizzie countered.

Bruce was very impressed by Lizzie’s sharpness.

“Well, I want to try and make it better.”

Lizzie nodded but seemed to have no further questions.

“Is it cause you’re rich?” Bastian asked.

Bruce blinked and Lizzie looked at him with confusion. “How’d you know that? Did daddy tell you?”

Bastian shook his head, “It’s his watch. And his shoes. And gramma’s rich, so I thought that probably daddy’s dad would be rich too.”

Before Bruce could fully express how impressive that deduction was for a five-and-a-half-year-old, Lizzie had caught onto something else.

“Why aren’t you and gramma together?”

Bruce had to think about this for a moment. He hadn’t listened to Damian and Alfred’s explanation beyond the address so he was flying a little blind.

“Um, who’s your dad’s mom?”

“Well, gramma’s Damian’s mom too,” Bastian told him.

“Oh… right. Well, she’s… we’re… it’s complicated.”

Bastian and Lizzie turned and whispered to each other. Then Lizzie stepped forward.

“We already have a gramma, so why do we need a grandpa too?”

Bruce smiled gently, “Well, I don’t think you do. Both of you are already so smart and wonderful. But… if you want, I can give you something that no one else can…” Bruce trailed off and the kids were looking at him with huge grins.

“What is it?”

“All the stories of your dad when he was littler than he was now.”

…

Jason was chatting to Laurie while Bruce was being interrogated by his other children.

“Do you think I should go in there?”

“Ba.”

“I know, he totally deserves whatever they’re doing, but those two can be downright evil sometimes.”

“Ug.”

“That’s true. That’s a good point. They have only stabbed me once. But what about the reverse, huh? What if he goes all growly on them and freaks them out?”

“Woo.”

“Okay, okay, you win, I’ll leave him in there.” Jason looked at Laurie who was eyeing his cheerios. “Oh, so you won’t eat the gourmet baby food I make you, but you want these cheerios?”

Laurie laughed.

Then he heard footsteps running down the hall. “Daddy! Daddy! Is it true that you’re scared of ducks?!”

Jason stared at them for a second and then burst out into laughter.

“I… I’m not  _ scared _ of them, but I just don’t trust them,” Jason explained with a grin.

“And is it true that you can do a backflip and that one time you tried it and landed on your butt?”

Jason sighed, “Yes.”

“Do one now!” Lizzie shouted.

“Yeah, daddy. Do a flip!”

Jason took a step back from the kids and performed a backflip. They cheered and clapped and yelled for him to do another one. And then another, and then another. And then Jason told them that Bruce could do a backflip too and they ran back to the office to make him do backflips for them.

By the time their naps came around both Bruce and Jason were exhausted from doing various feats at the kid’s insistence.

“Next time, bring Dick and they can torment him instead,” Jason groaned.

Bruce chuckled, “Yeah, he’d like that I’m sure.”

Jason sighed, “So… what’s going on with everyone?”

“Well, Dick and Barbara got engaged, broke up, then got engaged again,” Bruce began. “Tim’s CEO now.”

Jason nodded, “Yeah, saw that on the news. He isn’t working himself to death is he?”

“Not any more than usual. Tam took Luscious’ spot, so she’s watching out for him.”

“That’s good. Are they together? I heard that they had gotten engaged at some point.”

“No, that was just a rumour that Vicky Vale ran with. I think they are dating though,” Bruce said. “Damian hates me, so nothing’s changed there.” Jason rolled his eyes. “Cass is doing really well, she’s… well, I don’t think you’d recognize her. Her verbal communication has gotten so much better. Oddly enough, she runs a ballet school now.”

Jason smiled a little, thinking of her graceful movements and perfect balance. “I dunno, I think it makes sense.” There was one person Bruce hadn’t mentioned. Stephanie. “So… uh… what’s Steph up to?”

“She’s in her last year of medical school,” Bruce said.

Jason fully grinned. “That’s really great.”

Bruce looked slightly hesitant with his next words, but he thought that Jason should know. “She’s engaged to a police officer. His name’s Jackson.”

“Good for Blondie, honestly, I kinda thought you were gonna tell me she was still going after Tim,” Jason said. There wasn’t a hint of a lie in his face, and Bruce realized he was genuinely happy that everyone was doing okay. “What about Duke?” Bruce’s easy smile fell quickly and he looked down. Jason froze. “Bruce… is he-”

“No, he just… he only talks to Damian these days. He had a bit of a falling out with Dick and he won’t talk to me,” Bruce said sadly.

“What happened?”

Bruce looked up at Jason and then looked back away. “His parents died not long after you… after we thought you’d… after you left. He had a hard time with it, he became a bit rougher on the criminals on the streets, I don’t know exactly what happened, but Dick tried to step in and they fought.” Bruce paused, “I think some things were said from both of them that they didn’t mean but well, it’s been years and they don’t seem too keen on fixing that at all.”

Jason nodded, he was tempted to say something about how Dick could have that effect on people, but he didn’t give in to the impulse of the anger.

“Well that’s too bad, Duke’s a really good kid.”

“I know, he’s just finishing up his degree, I think he’s talked to Tim about doing something in R&D after.”

“Good for him.”

They were silent for a moment, neither knew exactly what to say.

“I’m sorry,” Jason said. “The way I left was… obviously I hurt you and everyone.”

Bruce gave Jason a small smile and patted his shoulder. “I was hurt, and it was awful, but I’m just so happy that you’re alive and I’m so happy that you’ve found a life that you like.”

Jason nodded, trying not to tear up, “Yeah, I- thank you.”

Bruce spent the next two days at Jason’s home, mostly ignoring his responsibilities in Gotham. He watched the kids while Jason went to work on Monday and Tuesday, and then Bruce had to return home.

The kids made him promise that he would come back soon and he agreed. Upon his return to Gotham, he couldn’t stop smiling.

Tim was the first person he saw. “So it’s true then? He’s alive?”

Bruce nodded with a grin, “He’s… it’s like he was before. He’s happy.”

Tim looked a little nervous as he glanced at the floor. “Do you think he’d mind another visitor?”

Bruce smiled at Tim, “He told me that you’re all welcome whenever you’d like.”

Jason, upon finding out that Damian and Alfred hadn’t told anyone about the kids, thought it would be funny if everyone else had the same surprise upon visiting, so Bruce didn’t mention the kids.

Tim smiled slightly and nodded, typing something into his phone. He was booking time off from Tam, who was very pleased, Tim had two years worth of unused vacation days.

He arrived in Oxfordshire two days later and rang Jason’s doorbell. It was opened by a tiny human boy.

“Uhh… sorry, I think I have the wrong house,” Tim said awkwardly.

“Daddy! There’s someone here!” The boy yelled into the house.

Tim heard Jason before he saw him.

“Bastian! I told you not to open doors to strangers,” Jason called as he quickly moved toward his son. He didn’t look at the person standing on the porch, instead picking up Bastian defensively. He then turned to Tim, hardly blinked and he relaxed and grinned. “Hey Timbers. How’s it going?”

Tim just stared at Jason.

Bastian leaned into his dad, “Daddy, I think he’s broken.”

Jason laughed, “Yep, I think he might be.” He put his free hand on Tim’s shoulder, “Come on in Timmy.”

Tim silently followed him into the house. Jason put Bastian down in the living room and motioned for Tim to follow him into the basement. There was another little sitting area down there and Jason sat across from the man.

“Tim, hey, man, you alright? I get that this is probably a bit of a shock, but you’re sorta freaking me out here.”

“That kid looked… exactly like you,” Tim eventually spoke.

Jason chuckled, “Well, I’d hope so, he’s my son.”

Tim blinked, “Right. You have… a son.”

“Well, I have two sons, actually, and one girl.”

Tim stared at him silently for a second. “Can I- can I meet them?”

“Yeah, of course,” Jason said.

He stood and then before he knew exactly what happened, Tim was hugging him.

“I missed you so much. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t feel awful for what happened that night. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. You are my friend, my brother. If I’d known you felt like that I would have done anything. I-” Tim sniffled into Jason’s shoulder.

“Don’t be sorry Tim, I should be sorry.”

Tim gripped Jason tightly for a few more moments.

The two of them went upstairs and Jason called for his kids. “Bastian! Lizzie! Come meet someone!”

The kids raced down the hall excitedly. “Who’s this daddy?” Lizzie asked.

“This is my little brother Tim,” Jason introduced. It made Tim want to start crying all over again, but he contained himself.

“I thought Damian was your little brother?” Bastian asked.

“He is, I have a lot of brothers. Tim is older than Damian.”

“Can you do a backflip too?”

Tim blinked at the girl, “Uhh… yeah?” 

They stared at him expectantly and Jason gave him a nudge. Tim did one, they clapped and demanded him to do another one. He complied and they were very pleased.

At dinner that night, the kids expressed that Tim was their new favourite. He treated them like tiny adults and they loved it. Bastian was especially taken by Tim, who loved the way the older man would take his time to explain complex things. For example, Bastian was interested in how Tim’s watch worked because it didn’t have a battery, so Tim took the time to painstakingly describe every single detail of how it functioned and answer every question the boy could come up with.

When it was bedtime, Bastian asked: “Can uncle Tim read me a story?”

Tim smiled, “Yeah, sure.”

He ended up reading the boy the first few chapters of Engineering 101, which was apparently the boy’s favourite.

When he returned, Jason had just gotten Lizzie to bed and was sitting on the floor trying to get Laurie to stack some blocks.

“Let me guess, he made you read that old engineering textbook?” Jason asked.

“Yep,” Tim said, popping the p. “He’s really smart. He actually understands it, which is insane. How old is he?”

“He’s five and a half.”

Tim blinked, “That’s… incredible.”

Jason smiled a little proudly. “Yeah, he’s… he has a good sense of the way things work, you know?”

“They’re great, both of them,” Tim said. He then smiled at the gurgling baby in front of Jason. “And he’s a funny little baby too.” He swallowed, “I always knew you’d be a good dad. You were always so good with Damian and with all of us really.”

“Thanks Timmy,” Jason said with a soft smile. Tim sat on the floor and played with Laurie for half an hour before he too was put to bed. Jason turned to Tim with a grin, “How about some MarioKart. For old time’s sake.”

“You’re so going down.”

Tim stayed the next day and then returned home, not wanting to miss too much Wayne enterprises work.

Noticeably to everyone in the family, he had a bit of an extra bounce in his step. He was patrolling with Dick when it was pointed out.

“Geeze, you must’ve really seen something over there to have you looking this pleased,” Dick commented.

Tim nodded, “You have no idea. He’s… he’s like how he was before, except- he’s just- every smile, every laugh, it’s real this time. He’s genuinely happy, and oh my god he’s such a good cook, I forgot how much I missed his food. How much I missed-” Tim choked. “I just missed him so much and then all of the sudden he was right there and he was okay. Better than okay.”

Dick’s heart ached. When Damian had told him about Jason… he wanted to go straight there and hug the life out of him. But then he remembered how Jason hadn’t wanted him to be a part of his life before, so why would he want him there now? He didn’t want to push himself onto the man. So he waited. Duke and Cass went to see Jason next, and again, they came back so much happier than they had been. Damian went back again, then so did Alfred, and then Bruce and Tim went back together.

Stephanie was the only one besides Dick that hadn’t gone to see Jason yet. They met up for coffee about it.

“I feel bad, but I don’t at the same time,” Steph said. “Cause first of all, I’m engaged, and how would I possibly explain to Jackson where I’m going. Oh, sorry babe, going to England to see the first man I loved who I thought killed himself but turned out to have just disappeared instead?”

“Yeah that’s… that must be really difficult. I think no one blames you for not being sure what to think of all this, Steph,” Dick said.

Steph shrugged, “So… why haven’t you gone? No offence, but I think we’re all a little surprised that you weren’t one of the first to go.”

“I just… he didn’t want me around before so I don’t really think he wants me around now.” Stephanie opened her mouth to say something, but Dick already knew what it was going to be. “I know that everyone’s said that he’s different and everything. But Tim… he described him as like he was, but genuine. He hated me, so I don’t know… why that would have changed.”

Stephanie’s eyes softened as she frowned. “Dick… Jason didn’t hate you. He always thought that you hated him. That picture, do you remember it? The one from his safe house?”

“Of course, I look at it every day.”

“I think that it’s supposed to represent that Jason always wanted a big brother, and you rejected him when the two of you were younger, and I think it hurt him a lot more than he let on. So… maybe it’s not that he doesn’t want to see you, I think it’s just that he’s afraid that you don’t like him.”

Dick was almost tearing up. “Of course I like him. He’s- he’s my little brother, I love him. I know at first I was a huge jerk, that’s on me, but I never once hated him. I would have done almost anything to make sure that what happened to him never happened.”

“Well… maybe you should tell  _ him  _ that.”

Dick looked up to Stephanie, revelation clear in his eyes. “I…”

“Go, Grayson. Tell your little brother you love him,” Steph said.

Dick beamed at her and took off to his car. He arrived at the manor not long after and briefly called to Bruce as he ran past: “Hey can I borrow the Batplane? Okay? Thanks!”

Dick went to Oxfordshire and arrived at Jason’s door in the middle of the day, but he remembered Bruce telling him that Jason was a professor at Oxford, so he figured the man would be at work.

The university in question was very close to Jason’s house, so Dick walked over and found the building that housed the English department. There was an office on the main floor and Dick saw that there was a directory with all of the Professor’s names and office numbers on it. Dick was only mildly surprised to see that Jason was listed as Professor Jason al Guhl. He asked the secretary where he might find Professor al Guhl at this time.

She sent him up to the room where his next lecture would be. He took a seat near the back of the room and watched as students filed in. He was sitting right behind two young ladies who were not exactly taking the class for academic reasons.

“Today I’m gonna make my move on the Professor,” one of them said.

“Amelia, this is a betrayal, you know I am going to marry him one day. And you can’t be a bridesmaid if you’ve dated him.”

The woman next to him seemed very interested in the subject matter, and Dick asked her about Jason as if he was a prospective student.

“Oh yeah, Professor al Guhl is probably one of the best in the whole English department. I go to the female self-defence class he puts on too. He’s a great teacher.”

“Huh, well, that’s really interesting.”

Jason cleared his throat and the class quieted down.

“Okay, today we’re going to be talking about the reading I assigned last class, so about half of you should easily be able to follow,” Jason began with a slight smile. A small round of chuckles went around the large class. “So, to those who did the readings, I want you to answer this question. Does the novel Pride and Prejudice suggest that for a relationship to work both people must change or does it suggest the opposite?”

A man in the front raised his hand. Jason pointed to him. “Well, I think it suggests the opposite. To a reader initially, it might seem like both Darcy and Elizabeth are different in the end, but I think that it’s just that they’re expressing a private side of themselves.”

“Interesting. So you think that it doesn’t suggest change, it just suggests openness?”

Jason and some of the students had a discussion before Jason started a slideshow of quotes and analysis pertaining to the discussion.

“Okay, the next paper, it’s due in two weeks. I want you to take a stance on what we discussed and I want you to discuss and disprove counterpoints. As always on Fridays, I don’t have any office hours, but if any of you have any questions come up to the front or email me later.”

Dick hung around in the back of the lecture hall until the students had thinned out. Jason gracefully rejected the women Dick had overheard and he was just packing up his bag when Dick walked up to him.

Jason didn’t seem surprised to see him. “Hey Dick, like the lecture?”

“How could you possibly have seen me from down here? There’s like 300 people in this class,” Dick asked.

“You sat next to my favourite student,” Jason replied with a smile.

“Oh… that adds up.”

Jason shook his head and chuckled. “I haven’t eaten yet, you want to grab lunch?”

Dick smiled and nodded.

Jason took Dick to a quiet restaurant near the campus.

“So… not that I’m not happy to see you, but I guess I was just thinking that you weren’t gonna show,” Jason started after they had ordered.

“Yeah I… I’m sorry. I wanted to come the moment that Bruce got back but then I uh- I thought about the last time I tried to, you know, infringe on your life and I kinda started to think that you wouldn’t want me to come.” Jason was about to cut in saying he was wrong. “I know, I know, Steph talked some sense into me.”

Jason smiled a bit at the mention of the blonde. “And how is Steph?”

“I think she’s okay. We don’t have a lot of time to talk these days, she’s very busy.”

Jason chuckled, “Yeah, I’ve heard.” He looked at Dick. “Just for the record, I am really happy to see you.”

Dick was beaming. “I’m really happy to see you too.”

They ate and Jason asked about what Dick was up to and Dick filled him in on more of the things that had gone on with the family recently.

Then they walked back to Jason’s house. Before they even got to the door, it was opened from inside and a little girl came rocketing toward them. “Daddy!” She shouted.

Dick almost passed out. He followed Jason inside and saw two more children and a woman. Was she their mother?

“ _ Thanks, Amina, you can head off early,” _ Jason spoke to the woman in Arabic and she left.

“Is that their mom… or?” Dick asked.

“Huh? No. That’s their nanny, it’s complicated, I’ll tell you later,” Jason said.

“Daddy, who’s this?” Bastian asked.

“This is Dick, he’s my big brother,” Jason explained.

Lizzie narrowed her eyes. “But he’s smaller. All your little brothers were smaller, I thought your big brother had to be bigger.”

Bastian shook his head before Jason could respond. “No, it’s not about size, remember. Uncle Tim is shorter than Uncle Damian and he’s older. And daddy’s taller than Grampa, but he’s younger. And Gramma’s shorter than daddy but she’s older.”

“Huh, so I could be bigger than you?”

Bastian considered this, “Maybe. Auntie Cass is short.”

Dick couldn’t help but smile at the kids.

“I think you guys are really going to have fun with Uncle Dick here,” Jason spoke. The kids looked at him with curious gazes. “He can do  _ way  _ cooler stuff than a backflip.”

Half an hour later, and Dick was still doing quite impressive feats of gymnastics for the kids who were absolutely delighted.

“Okay, stop terrorizing him. You can play with your new uncle later. You two have some work you need to be doing if you remember.”

Lizzie sighed, but Bastian seemed excited. Dick followed them back into the house where Jason had taken out a few books and some worksheets.

“You’re homeschooling them?” Dick asked.

“Eh, sort of. They aren’t old enough to go to school yet, but they need something to keep their brains running, you know?”

“Huh.” Dick looked at the kids reading and writing at a level he certainly never got to until he was twice their age. “That’s actually really impressive.”

Later, Jason made dinner while Dick taught the kids some tumbling on the trampoline. Then they watched a movie until it was time for the kids to go to sleep.

Jason took Dick down to the basement where they sparred for a bit. When they were done, sitting on the mats sipping on their water bottles, Jason asked when he had wanted to all day.

“The whole day, you’ve been acting like you have something to say but feel like you can’t say it.”

“I uh… yeah.” Dick rubbed the back of his neck. “When we were trying to search the city for you after… that night, Steph went to one of your safehouses. And she found a picture. It was one of-”

“You and me and Bruce before the Wayne Christmas Gala,” Jason answered. Dick stared at him and briefly wondered if he had developed some sort of clairvoyance in the years he had been gone. “I only ever kept two photos with me, because I was worried that if anyone ever came across the photos, they’d figure it out.” Dick suddenly understood a bit more about Jason’s struggle before. “One was just me and Bruce, and that one was the other.”

“Oh… right. Well, anyway, I stared at it for days after, you know, trying to figure out why you’d keep that photo of all things, and I never figured it out. I was terrible to you when you were new to Robin, and so I guess after a few failed attempts to reconnect, I guess I just figured that you hated me and that it wasn’t going to change. But then Steph told me that she thought that the picture was supposed to represent what you had wanted, for all of us to be an actual family. She said that she didn’t think you hated me.” Dick swallowed as he looked at Jason. “So I guess I wanted to come here to see if she was right.”

Jason just looked at Dick. “I never-” His voice was far too shaky for his liking. “I was just afraid, I guess, that you never really felt that way, that you never really wanted to… reconcile, I guess. I thought maybe it was more out of guilt than anything else. I thought  _ you  _ hated  _ me _ . I mean,  _ I  _ hated me, so the idea that someone else did too wasn’t a stretch. And I always just thought that there had been too much between us to ever be able to be brothers.”

Dick was tearing up, “Little wing… I…” Dick started crying, and honestly, so did Jason. “No, I love you, you’re my little brother, of course I love you. I’m so sorry for what I did that night.”

“And I’m sorry too, I never gave you a chance, and I did all those things to Tim and Damian to try and hurt you because I was jealous that they had you,” Jason spoke.  Both men stood and hugged tightly. Jason stepped back and clapped Dick on the shoulder. “I forgot how sappy you were,” he said with a grin.

“Me? I just watched you talk for two hours about a romance novel!” Dick exclaimed.

…

Everything was great for everyone, it seemed. Everyone except Stephanie.

She loved Jackson, she really, really did. He was great. He knew she had some secrets, she figured that he probably knew the general gist of her nightly activities, but he never pried. He had initially been very confused about her strange connection to Bruce Wayne.

“So… you go to dinner at Wayne Manor once a week because you used to date one of his sons?”

“Well… yeah? I don’t know, it’s kind of complicated. His daughter and one of his other sons are like my best friends. And Tim and I are still pretty good friends too, actually. Dick’s been like a big brother to me these past few years, and Damian and I were pretty close when he was younger. Bruce is… sorta like a dad? If I was like an annoying kid, you know?”

When their relationship was becoming more serious, Bruce wanted to meet him, so they invited him over to the manor for dinner. It was a little awkward, and Steph had very mixed feelings about it. The last person she was dating was Jason, and she really wasn’t sure if Bruce was going to approve of this.

She was wrong, though, and they seemed to get along really well. During one of Dick and Barbara’s ‘on’ periods, Commissioner Gordon attended dinner, and that was also extremely awkward.

So let’s just say that over the past three years, Jackson has gotten a bit of a good feel for when stuff was going on with the family that they didn’t want to tell him about.

This week’s dinner was one of them. Usually, Jackson would just let it go, but this time, literally everyone was behaving strangely. He knew from Steph that there had been a lot of travel to and from England, but not why. Even stranger, it was as if it was about  _ him _ . 

About halfway through the dinner, he had had enough.

“Okay, I get that you guys have some stuff you can’t tell me. But if something’s going on that is about me, I need to know,” Jackson said strongly.

Everyone looked toward Bruce who nodded slightly at Stephanie, giving her unspoken permission to tell him whichever version of facts she felt appropriate.

“Umm… so… six years ago a family friend that we were all very close to killed himself. At least, we all thought so. But a few weeks ago Alfred and Damian found out that he was alive, living in England,” Stephanie told him.

Jackson furrowed his eyebrows. “Okay… but why does that mean everyone's staring at me strangely- I mean, more strangely than usual.”

Damian, who had been making more amends with the family since remeeting Jason, stared at Jackson like he was an idiot. “Tt. Because he wasn’t just a family friend. He was my brother, he was our brother, and he and Brown were romantically involved.”

Jackson was having a hard time keeping everything straight. “I thought Stephanie dated Tim?”

“She did,” Tim said. “This was just after that.”

“Okay, so, correct me if I’m wrong, but the reason you’re all acting weird is because you’ve all gone to see this mysterious, assumed-dead brother slash son… slash ex-lover?”

“Well, I haven’t gone, I’m the only one,” Stephanie sighed. “Hence why there is a little bit of tension.”

“You haven’t gone?” He asked.

“Well, no, I’ve been here.”

“Well… shouldn’t you go?”

“I…” Stephanie looked at the others attempting not to listen in. “Maybe we should talk about this later?”

“Yeah, okay.”

The rest of the dinner proceeded in a very stilted manner until Steph and Jackson left and returned to their apartment.

They sat down at the table in their small kitchen and looked at each other.

“I’ll start,” Jackson began. Steph nodded. “So, I guess… I wanna say that if you’re having second thoughts about the wedding, I get it.” Stephanie’s eyes widened and she looked at him with shock, but he continued. “I remember when we were watching Grey’s Anatomy and you said that you would have done what Riggs did and go back to a lost loved one. And I know it was just a show, but… I think you need to go see him and make sure that- that you still want this.”

Stephanie stared at him for a moment. “I- no!” He was taken aback. “No! Of course I still want this! What have I done to make you think I didn’t?!”

Jackson was now on the defensive. “Uh… nothing babe, I just thought-”

“You have no idea how hurt I was, how  _ betrayed  _ I was! I would never go back to that. Never!”

“Okay… well… don’t you think you want to go see him anyway?” Jackson asked. “I mean… everyone else seemed to… I don’t know, come back with a bit of weight off their chests you know?” Stephanie looked at him. “And… I don’t know, if you’re sure you’re over it, then… what’s the harm right? Maybe we can both go? I could intimidate him.”

Stephanie tried to keep a straight face, she really did.

He frowned with confusion when she burst out into laughter. “What?”

“Nothing, nothing. Okay, yeah, let’s take a vacation. I’m literally 100% sure Bruce’ll pay for it.”

So two weeks later (the earliest both of them could get a week off at the same time), they made their way to Oxfordshire.

It was the evening when they arrived, they still had all their things with them. Bruce had said Jason has a bunch of spare rooms, so they hadn’t gotten a hotel.

Before they rang the doorbell, Steph turned to Jackson. “You’re really sure you’re okay with this?”

“Yeah, of course I am.”

It was the end of the summer classes at Oxford, so while it was the middle of the day, they knew Jason would likely be home.

She rang the doorbell and waited for a few moments. She heard the lock turn and saw the handle move, and at that moment she felt more afraid than she’d been in a long time.

Jason opened the door, but it wasn’t just him. There was a little girl sitting on his shoulders, a little boy hanging onto his leg, and Steph could hear a baby crying in the background.

Jason grinned at her, “Hey Blondie.” Stephanie stood there for a moment, as Jason detached his kids from him. He frowned and she realized she was crying. Jason turned to Lizzie and Bastian. “Can you two please go see why your brother is upset?”

“Okay daddy,” Bastian chirped. Both of them ran off.

“Steph…” Jason said. “I’m sorry.”

She jerked her head to look at him and clenched her fist. He caught her punch halfway and moved out of the way of the knee to the groin. He then ducked under her next strike and got behind her, which allowed him to grab her arms and pin them behind her.

“Not that I don’t miss your very aggressive angry side, but can you kick my ass inside? I don’t want the neighbours to get the wrong idea here,” Jason spoke with a very pleased smile.

Jackson had just been standing there in very stunned silence. This man was very much not what he had been expecting. Jackson was a big guy. 6 feet, 180 pounds, very fit. This man looked like he could pick him up with his pinky toe.

Was Jackson alarmed when Stephanie then proceeded to attack a man who looked like he could easily kill them both? Yes. Luckily, he seemed both pleased and not surprised.

“Great, let’s go then,” Stephanie growled.

Jason smiled and let go of Stephanie. He then turned to Jackson, “Hey, nice to meet you.”

Jackson blinked, “Uh… you too?”

They went into the house, “In the basement, Blondie, I’ll be down in a second,” Jason told the woman.

Jackson followed her down the stairs, “Umm… babe? Can we just talk about this for a second? He seems very nice and everything, but are you actually going to fight him because honestly, he looks like he could kill you.”

“He’s fine,” Stephanie growled.

“Did you know about the kids?” He asked.

“No. I didn’t.”

Jason came downstairs and smiled at her, “Street rules or… you know, the other rules.”

“How about no rules!” Steph shouted. She charged at him and it began.

Jackson watched with fear/amazement as Stephanie attempted to murder Jason, and watched with equal admiration as Jason managed to defend himself without getting hit.

After about ten minutes, both of them were breathing heavily. They stood there for a second before Jason came up to her and stood right in front. “If you really need to hit me, go ahead.”

Stephanie stared at him, she wanted to, she really did. Instead she wrapped her arms around his torso and started to sob into his chest.

Jackson felt… something. He wasn’t sure what it was. Looking back, it might’ve been resignation.

Over the next few days, Stephanie was different. The way she looked at the kids, the way her eyes glittered whenever Jason called her Blondie, the way she avoided touching Jackson in front of him at all costs.

The fifth night of their stay, Jackson pulled Stephanie aside.

“Steph… I think we need to talk.”

Steph looked at him with a hint of confusion.

“You have been so happy here. Happier than I have ever seen you in Gotham. And Jason is a great guy, I can tell that he’s still in love with you.” Stephanie began to tear up as he spoke. “I… I love you, Steph, but I don’t want you to have to hide a part of yourself from me for the rest of your life.” He wiped off a few tears rolling down Stephanie’s cheek. “Don’t be upset, I thought… I thought that this might happen, I just want you to be happy.”

“I’m sorry,” Steph croaked, “You deserve better than this.”

“Hey, it’s alright.”

Steph looked down at her finger and took off her engagement ring. She gave it to him. “I’m gonna go back to Gotham on our flight tomorrow, but I think you should stay for a while longer.”

<><> Two years later <><>

Bruce was going through his suitcase looking for his cufflinks. “Alfred, do you-”

Alfred already had then in his hands and was putting them on Bruce’s jacket before the man could finish his question.

“Thanks.”

“Of course, Master Bruce. Now, let’s go, we are running a little close on time.”

Alfred and Bruce drove to an old cathedral on the outskirts of the city and saw that the other’s cars were all already there.

Bruce and Alfred entered the church and slipped in next to Tim. “The two of you are lucky that Jason hasn’t got here yet, or else he would have given you that look.”

Bruce chuckled and then turned to see who was coming in behind him. It was Jason and Damian. They walked up to the front of the church, Jason smiled at Bruce, Bruce tried to send a reassuring look to him. Jason then glanced at Talia, who was sitting nearer to the back of the church holding the now 3-year-old Laurie on her lap.

It was a very small wedding. The Wayne family was there, Stephanie’s mom was in attendance, along with some other members of the hero community. Conner Kent had come with Kara, a good friend of Stephanie’s. Then there was Dinah Lance, Oliver Queen and Roy Harper. Roy, upon seeing Jason and Damian get in, went to go stand up front with them. He was Jason’s best man after all. The light chatter that was in the church settled and then the door opened. Cass, Stephanie’s maid of honour came down the aisle followed by Barbara. Then Bastian and Lizzie came down throwing flower petals.

Then Stephanie came down, looking a little nervous. She was being walked down the aisle by her mom, Crystal. Jason couldn’t help but beam.

It was a nice ceremony, and there was a small reception taking place at their house.

Afterwards, lying in bed that night, Jason looked down at Stephanie. “Thank you, for loving me, Stephanie Brown.”

She smiled tiredly at him, “Sappy.”

He rolled his eyes, “Nerd.”

“I love you too, now go to sleep. Weddings are exhausting.”

They didn’t get to sleep in much, as they were awoken by three children leaping into their bed.

“Mom! Dad! Uncle Tim and Uncle Damian are fighting!” Bastian exclaimed excitedly.

Jason sighed deeply. Damian had been living with them while he attended Oxford, and Tim had also been staying in Jason’s house while he was here for the wedding. Cass was somewhere around there too, but it honestly wouldn’t surprise Jason if she found an air-duct to sleep in, just to freak Jason out.

“Can we ever wake up normally?” Jason groaned.

“Nope,” Steph replied.

Jason walked out into the main living area and saw Damian holding Tim’s coffee out of reach while Tim seemed genuinely close to tears.

“What the hell is going on out here?” Jason demanded.

“Tt. I believe Timothy is attempting to overdose on caffeine,” Damian said, clearly displeased.

“Just give him his coffee Damian, you know how he is in the morning,” Jason said.

“No, ahki, you do not understand. This is no coffee, this is a monstrous beverage. He cold-brewed dark-roast with Red Bull and added a bottle of five-hour energy,” Damian explained with a scowl.

“I need it…” Tim whined. Jet-lag had not been good to him.

Jason sighed and turned to look at Steph, who was walking into the room holding Laurie.

“Nothing ever changes,” he said, trying to look exasperated instead of insanely happy.

Stephanie smiled and looked at Laurie and Lizzie and Bastian moving around them, “Some things do.”

Jason smiled at her, and she knew he meant it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the incredible response to this story. I'm so glad you all liked it. I am thinking about doing a series of one-shots just exploring the others that didn't get much screen time in the end. So let me know if you'd be interested in that.  
> As always, I hope you enjoyed!


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